


Team Machine? More Like Team Machinations

by ionizable



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Matchmaking, Miscommunication, Pining, Pranks and Practical Jokes, ergo everyone is basically just a little shit, everyone is a matchmaker, in fluffy ways. mostly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-18 10:16:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 39,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3565934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ionizable/pseuds/ionizable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's finally gotten to the point where everyone else is just so tired of all the tension, all the time, that they've each ended up conspiring ways to get Shaw and Root to, you know, do the thing, and then maybe talk about it. </p><p>Set sometime in the nebulous future after Shaw has returned from Samaritan’s clutches, PERFECTLY SAFE AND SOUND.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Machine

“I hate this place,” Shaw mutters under her breath.

There’s no response from the other end of the comms, but Shaw hadn’t been expecting one. She’s working this number solo, and immensely regretting not having picked the suburban housewife number in Yonkers that John and Harold had ended up taking instead.

This is by far the most disappointing gun shop she’s ever had the misfortune of walking into, _and_ she’d been forced to take a flight to _Louisville_ to get to this number. This is _not_ what she had expected when Harold had told her that the Machine was trying to send one of them to a Kentucky gun shop.

She’d been promised guns, with the accompanying possibility of a relevant number or illegal arms dealing or adrenaline-pumping shoot-outs or potentially walking away with one or two new toys that Finch didn’t need to know about.

Instead, what she has is a scrawny teenage boy who looks disinterested enough in the world around him that he’s probably the target of someone who decided the little punk had just scowled at the wrong guy.

Shaw clears her throat in an attempt to catch the attention of the indifferent teenager behind the counter for the third time. The boy pops his gum and stays seated with his feet up on the display case, typing away on his phone.

Shaw grits her teeth as the incessant little phone typing sounds continue to clack away, and clears her throat again, louder this time.

The boy’s eyes flick up briefly. “Prices are on the stickers.”

“I noticed,” Shaw says dryly, and very patiently too, in her opinion. “Can I see the AK-47 pistol there behind you, the one without the stabilizing brace?”

Shaw notes the number’s gaze suddenly turn assessing and sharp, making him look more like the 20-year-old perpetrator he might possibly be than the convincing impression of a sullen 12-year-old he’d been pulling off earlier.

She reluctantly pastes on a smile and adds, “Oh no, I forget, does the stabilizing brace help you hold the gun steady? Does that mean it can help you aim?”

The ensuing conversation is quite possibly the most irritating one she’s needed to suffer through in a while.

When was the last time she’d seen Root? Three weeks ago?

Yeah, probably since then.

Shaw tries not to blow out a sigh of exasperation as the boy proves himself completely incapable of even knowing if the thing is semi-automatic (it is).

She bites at the inside of her cheek every time she’s tempted to blow her cover and correct almost every single thing that comes out of his mouth. Gritting her teeth as he fumbles with the hinged top cover, Shaw resists the urge to yank a perfectly good weapon away from someone who has no business handling guns, much less selling them.

The door rings behind her, signaling the entrance of another customer.

“Hey, Miss Piggy!” the boy yells behind him. “Get out here!”

Shaw assumes he’s talking to his mother, the owner of this fine establishment, because there hadn’t been any signs of anyone else around when she’d cased the place before entering. Her estimation of the likelihood of this little hooligan being the target is increasing again.

Shaw studies the mother out of the corner of her eye when the woman emerges from the back, wondering how such a seemingly pleasant-looking woman could have produced offspring as unpleasant as the number.

But appearances were deceiving more often than not, and Shaw entertains the possibility of this woman plotting a way to get rid of her son. Not that Shaw would blame her, if this was an average day in the life of the number.

Wincing as the idiot continues to ineffectually manhandle the pistol, but clenching her fists in her pockets so as not to blow her cover by grabbing it from him and doing it herself, Shaw decides to check out the other customer who’d entered the shop.

It’s Root.

Root is the other customer.

Root is the other customer and she is smiling _that smile_ at Shaw and making her way over to say hello.

Shaw freezes for a second, quickly cataloguing her options.

She could abruptly turn around and hope Root would also pretend that they didn’t know each other, but the chances of that were probably so slim that Shaw may as well just run out right now and visit a nearby farm to see if there were any flying pigs around.

Or she could quickly establish a cover story. She _should_ quickly establish a cover story, before Root ran away with some ridiculous—

“Hi, sweetie,” Root chirps in a nearly perfect Kentucky affectation, arms open wide for a hug.

Shaw recoils automatically. Stiffly and reluctantly, she stands stock-still as Root drops an exaggerated air kiss on each cheek.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, trying not to sound too suspicious, acutely aware of both the mother and son interestedly watching their interaction.

Root shrugs. “My boss wants me to pick something up. She was very insistent.”

“Oh she was, was she,” Shaw says slowly, eyes narrowing. “This kind of thing doesn’t really seem _relevant_ to your usual line of work.”

With about as much social grace as could be expected from the number, he interrupts by loudly tapping the pistol on the glass counter. “Did you still want to see this or can I put it back?”

Inhaling deeply, Shaw turns back around and does her best to try to engage the boy in some banal conversation to get a better sense of what he could be up to that would have brought him to the attention of the Machine. It’s like pulling teeth, and yet again, Shaw finds herself gritting hers.

“Friend of yours?” she hears the boy’s mother ask Root.

“Something like that,” Root smiles. “My boss should have called in already, I’m just here to pick up a package.”

“Let me see if I can find it in the log,” the woman says. “A bit difficult, is she?”

Shaw realizes they’re still talking about her. As if she isn’t standing _right there_.

“Once you spend enough time with her, you really don’t notice it anymore,” Root replies. The timbre of her voice drops just the slightest as she continues, “I’ve come to really, ah, take _pleasure_ in seeing her.”

“I see.” There’s a faint hint of disapproval in the woman’s voice as she picks up on the obvious innuendo.

The number looks up from his phone and quickly glances between Root and Shaw with wide eyes, before quietly laughing to himself a little bit after a furtive glance at his mother.

Shaw hates this place.

This wouldn’t have happened in New York.

People in New York don’t have _conversations_. They don’t try to _learn_ things about strangers.

She shoots a _look_ over her shoulder at Root, which the woman behind the counter (no longer quite so pleasant-seeming, with her face twisted in judgment and eyes darting suspiciously between them) doesn’t miss.

Root leans on the glass counter and aims a brilliant smile at Shaw in response.

Shaw really hopes they aren’t meant to be working together on this number.

 

* * *

 

 

“This was fun,” Root says, as she reclines her chair back and comfortably stretches out.

Shaw doesn’t reply, but the drumming of her fingers on the armrest picks up pace. She checks her watch again, before peering out the window and scowling at the light rain.

Their flight back to New York has been delayed by roughly two hours, already, and they’ve been sitting on the plane for over half an hour. Almost all of the other flights out of this airport have suffered a similar fate, with some delays stretching up to five hours.

To her credit, Shaw has only griped about not having commandeered a private jet about three times, but Root’s sure that number will increase once she informs Shaw that they were never meant to be leaving Louisville tonight.

“One hour! That’s all it took for this mission,” Root continues, undeterred by the unmistakable glare of exasperation being thrown her way every time she speaks. “You should have come with me to Belize, that number took me nearly two weeks on my own.”

Shaw sighs heavily, giving in to Root’s incessant attempts at conversation. “Speaking of which, why were you sent here anyway? The Machine doesn’t normally have you running after irrelevants even when we’re all in New York, and I didn’t need your help with that two-bit gun-dealing worst-mother-of-the-year.”

“No?” Root asks, amused. “If it wasn’t for my strategy, that woman might never have snapped and tried to get all three of us at once, and then it could have been too late by the time she tried to kill her son.”

“Strategy,” Shaw mutters. “What strategy? You just did what you always do.”

Root wrinkles her nose and leans in close. “Would it surprise you to learn I had an inside tip? That homophobic old bat wasn’t inclined to take too well to our kind trying to spread our nefarious agenda, especially to her already sin-ridden son.”

“Our kind,” Shaw repeats, looking as though she’s going to say something in response, but then she abruptly turns away to scowl out the window again.

Some time passes, during which Root contentedly watches a muscle in Shaw’s neck flex in irritation. Finally, Shaw says, “You never answered my question. Why are you here? Why am _I_ here?”

Root smiles, pleased when Shaw eventually rolls her eyes and drops the subject, because She actually hadn’t told her what the purpose of being in Louisville was. For now, Root is content to settle back into her chair, waiting for the overbooked flight request she’d been instructed to volunteer for.

Several hours ago, Root had been informed by Her that their flight would be overbooked by two seats, and that they wouldn’t be able to catch a plane out of Louisville tonight. Root had opted not to share this with Shaw, because Shaw would have undoubtedly just left, and She had made it very clear that they were to volunteer to come off of the overbooked flight.

And sure enough, within a matter of minutes, Shaw and Root are back inside the airport terminal, signing off on a pair of compensatory flight, hotel, and meal vouchers as the booking agent thanks them for their patience (albeit uncertainly, as Shaw stands there with her arms crossed, silently demanding an explanation for all this wasted time from Root and the Machine).

Root cheerily takes Shaw’s arm and pulls her along, intent on getting some down time before whatever She has planned for them tonight is put into play. “Let’s go have a look at the free things we got.”

Squinting at the hotel vouchers as she lets herself get pulled along to a waiting cab, Shaw frowns doubtfully. “Is this a typo? Isn’t the 21c Museum Hotel a little extravagant, even for first class volunteers?”

Root peers at the paper, largely unconcerned. “She probably had a hand in bumping us up.”

“But is that all the Machine had a hand in?” Shaw mutters to herself. Root pretends she hadn’t heard, but the first inklings of suspicion are now settling in.

On their way out of the terminal, Root looks over her shoulder at the departure screen, filled with an endless list of delayed flights the last time she’d looked.

One by one, every single one of the flights that had previously been delayed, from Narita to JFK, is now being firmly scheduled for departure.

 

* * *

 

 

“For the last time, I was not _crying_ ,” Shaw snaps.

“Oh, Sam,” Root says affectionately. “You can be honest with me.”

“One more word, Root,” Shaw says. “I dare you.”

They’re walking into the hotel, after having just cashed in their meal voucher down the street. Shaw’s striding ahead of Root, huffy, and probably at least a little flustered.

Root _knows_ she saw at least one tear welling up in Shaw’s eye. It was before their table had turned into a scene of carnage as Shaw devoured anything and everything edible within reach, but after the first few bites of her bison burger and moans of appreciation that had caused Root to look away and surreptitiously cross her legs under the table.

But she just smiles as she joins Shaw at the reception desk, pleasantly warm from the glass of wine she’d had with her dinner and content in the knowledge that she’d witnessed something beautiful (even if Shaw would never admit to it).

“It was a pretty damn great burger,” Shaw eventually says, as she waits for their separate room vouchers to be scanned. “Thank God Samaritan never tried to alter my memories. I can’t stand the idea of not being able to remember what really good food tastes like.”

“Or me, too, right?” Root mischievously whispers in her ear.

Shaw quickly checks to make sure the man behind the reception desk isn’t listening, then elbows Root lightly in the side. “ _You_ , I could have gladly forgotten.”

Root can tell Shaw doesn’t mean it. She gave herself away by only elbowing Root _lightly_.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. There seems to be something wrong with our system, if you could wait a moment please?”

Shaw’s fingers begin drumming on the desk as she nods curtly, and the man behind it appears to be nervously assessing Shaw as he calls for tech support.

Shaw shoots Root a suspicious glance, as if she had had something to do with it. For her part, though, Root is just as suspicious, but of Her unusual methods.

Lowering her head slightly, Root murmurs, “Can’t you fix it?”

“I’m trying, ma’am,” the man says apologetically from a neighbouring terminal, where he appears to be encountering the same problem he’d had before.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Root says, somewhat tetchily.

They’ve been encountering far too many technical difficulties in such a short time period for it to be a coincidence. And now She was being cryptic with the only instruction being “take the room.”

The fact that “room” is singular and not plural isn’t lost on Root, and she bites her bottom lip nervously when she catches Shaw watching her expression carefully.

Shaw’s about to take a vaguely menacing step towards her, probably to ask what she’d done now, but _she hadn’t even done anything_.

“Um,” the man says hesitantly. His eyes dart between Shaw and Root, and settle on Root, apparently deciding that she seemed just slightly less likely to bite his head off. “This is the strangest thing I’ve ever seen, but every time I try to scan either of the vouchers, it’s only letting me book one specific room. It’s… the strangest thing.”

Before Shaw can say anything, Root tugs on Shaw’s arm and pulls her a little off to the side.

“She told us to ‘take the room,’ Sameen,” Root says quietly. “Maybe She wants us in there for something important.”

Shaw squints at her distrustfully. “Why? Is something going to happen in that room?”

Root shakes her head, honestly befuddled. “I can’t seem to get a straight answer out of her.”

“It’s a very nice room,” the man calls from behind the desk, with a nervous smile as they turn back towards him. “One of our best, actually.”

“Alright, fine,” Shaw grumbles. “This better be coming from the Machine, Root.”

“It is,” Root says, and it seems like the faint traces of worry on her face finally convince Shaw that she’s telling the truth.

“So you’d like the Balcony Suite, then?” the man asks. “In addition to being a king room, it opens out into a furnished, semi-private rooftop terrace that overlooks 7th Street, and has all the usual amenities associated with luxury suites.”

“Great,” Shaw says impatiently. “Two key cards, please.”

“Oh,” the man says after a moment.

“Let me guess,” Shaw sighs. “The system’s only letting you make one.”

He nods.

“Fine,” Shaw says, snatching it out of his hand and making her way to the elevators. “I’m keeping it, Root.”

Root snaps herself out of the contemplative funk she’d been in, trying to figure out what She was up to. Shaking it off, she easily catches up to Shaw.

“That’s fine by me, Sameen,” Root says, smiling down at her. “This just means I need to stick with you at all times.”

When they get up to the room, Root thinks she feels a familiar crackling in her implant.

“You go in, I think She’s trying to talk to me. The signal isn’t coming through clearly for some reason,” Root says. “Just leave the door open.”

“If you get through to Her, you should ask Her why She didn’t get us a room with two beds, because now Her analogue interface is going to be sleeping outside on the terrace,” Shaw grumbles, but she flips the latch to keep the door propped ajar.

Root wanders around the entire floor, occasionally hearing some interesting muffled noises coming from within other suites, but still nothing from Her.

Frowning as she lets herself into their room, Root thinks that maybe she just really wanted to be told what was happening, and so imagined that She was trying to talk to her.

“Sameen?” she calls, looking around at the empty sitting room.

“Root! Are you _kidding me_?”

Root decides to stay where she is, examining the signature hotel robes in the closet. She has a resigned feeling she knows exactly why Shaw’s yelling from inside the bedroom.

“ _Root!_ ”

“Yes?” she calls back, still reluctant to go into an enclosed room in close quarters with Shaw when she’s using that tone of voice.

She idly starts opening and closing empty drawers in the sitting room.

“Oh, sparkling wine,” she says, upon seeing the bottle wrapped in a bow and placed on the table next to two long-stemmed glasses. She picks up the card sitting next to it.

 **_Thank you for selecting the Romance Package.  
_ ** _By now you may have found our complimentary bottle of sparkling wine, or perhaps explored the rooftop terrace just outside the floor-to-ceiling glass doors. Please feel free to…_

“Oh, no,” Root says.

“Why are there _rose petals_ on the bed, Root!”

“Oh, no,” Root says again.

 

* * *

 

 

After about an hour of sitting quietly and enjoying a glass of the sparkling wine on the terrace, Root feels a familiar pricking in her implant again.

She takes another sip and waits for Her to confirm what both she and Shaw had already realized a while ago – “no mission in Louisville.” Short of issuing a blatant directive, Root’s hard pressed to think of a way She could have been any more obvious.

Root wouldn’t mind turning in early tonight, and maybe she could even crawl under the covers of the king bed before Shaw got the chance to threaten to exile her to the couch in the sitting room.

Standing and stretching languidly, she wonders where Shaw is.

“All this needs is a stupid heart-shaped Jacuzzi,” Shaw had muttered nearly an hour ago, before stomping away to investigate.

Stepping back into the suite, Root wonders if an hour is enough time for Shaw to accept that there was no possible way Root could have orchestrated all of this _and_ delayed every single flight out of Louisville. Not without a little more prep time, anyway.

“Sameen?” she calls.

“Root. Come here,” Shaw calls from the bathroom.

Root pads over softly in the fluffy white slippers she’d found in the closet, and stops in her tracks at the doorway of the bathroom.

Shaw’s looking up at her from a pewter bathtub, naked and immersed in crystal clear bathwater, head slightly tilted and hair slicked back.

They stare at each other for some time, before Root smiles, long and slow. “So, no heart-shaped Jacuzzi?”

Shaw grins back at her, positively wolfishly. “Nope. Just this normal little tub.”

There’s a trail of clothing being carelessly dropped as Root makes her way towards Shaw. “Hmm,” she says, kicking off the slippers. “That’s a pity.”

Shaw pulls her legs up to make room for Root to sink into the other end of the tub, with a small smirk of appreciation as she watches Root, and an accompanying hum of disagreement. “I think we can make do with what we have,” she says, leaning forward to kiss Root.

It’s almost _chaste_ , with both of them wrapping their arms around their knees, lips and tongue and teeth meeting at a leisurely, unhurried pace, toes gently resting against each other at the bottom of the tub.

Root smiles, her lips curving against Shaw’s.

“What?” Shaw murmurs.

“Nothing,” Root says, running her tongue along Shaw’s bottom lip.

Shaw pulls her head back and looks at her expectantly.

Barely managing to keep from smiling _too much_ , Root cocks her head and studies Shaw’s features, lingering on Shaw’s mouth. She’s close enough to see the slightly redder marks left by her teeth on Shaw’s already reddened lips.

“Root,” Shaw says, watching Root’s pupils dilate as Root watches Shaw’s lips move.

Root spreads her legs around Shaw and stretches them out before leaning forward again and stopping just short. She looks at Shaw almost petulantly, and Shaw sighs and drops a quick kiss on her lips.

Pleased, Root looks down at her hands gently skimming along Shaw’s sides in the water, transfixed by the patterns of ripples.

“I’m just…” Root hesitates.

Shaw rolls her eyes and gives her another peck, but that wasn’t what Root had been angling for this time. She grins, though, and quickly kisses Shaw on the nose before Shaw’s hand comes up out of the water to bat at her in disgust.

Placing her hands on Shaw’s shoulders and gently pushing, Root gets onto her knees and hovers over Shaw, pulling her hair to one side. Her head dips down, waiting until the water settles so that the water is just skimming the tops of Shaw’s breasts.

“I’m glad you made it back,” Root says, so softly that Shaw almost doesn’t hear it at first.

Shaw leans back against the edge of the tub, thinking about her response. Her hands run up and then down along Root’s back and sides, water sluicing off and distorting the refractions of Root’s hips as Shaw gently pulls them down further into the water.

“I’ve been back for a while, you know,” Shaw says, at length, studying Root’s expression carefully.

Root laughs a little, at Shaw’s response, the sound coming out warm and dry. It was about as much as she could have expected Shaw to say, and so she gently pulls Shaw’s face up towards hers.

With her hands bracketing either side of Shaw’s neck, they kiss, slow at first, then gradually more insistent as Shaw begins to grip her hips more firmly. Root sinks down, meeting one of Shaw’s thighs with a slight shudder and a sharp exhalation into Shaw’s mouth.

Shaw breaks the kiss, clearly still thinking about what Root had said as she studies Root’s face again.

So Root brings her mouth to the side and changes the topic. “You know, this was all Her idea,” she whispers, grinding down a little harder, a little faster than she had before, gasping into Shaw’s ear and feeling Shaw’s heart race under her palm.

A loud snort makes Root look to see an indignant look on Shaw’s face.

“I think we managed to figure out how _this_ works without Her help,” Shaw says a little breathlessly, slowly sliding her hand down past Root’s abdomen and watching Root’s head slowly arch back.

Shaw’s mouth opens a little more the farther down she goes, barely breathing, intently watching Root’s eyes slide shut.

“I don’t mean _this_ ,” Root gasps out, words punctuated between clenched teeth and a reluctant grin.

Squirming just the slightest around Shaw’s hand, but otherwise staying perfectly still, Root presses her mouth against Shaw’s deltoid with only the smallest of whimpers escaping as Shaw’s other hand wanders.

“Right. We’ve always been good at… _this_ ,” Shaw says with a satisfied smile on her face as she abruptly curls her fingers inward and feels Root bite down with a muffled, keening noise as she comes apart around her hand.

Shaw brushes Root’s hair away from her face, waiting until the suppressed panting has completely subsided before withdrawing and smirking at the hazy look in Root’s eyes.

“But if you’re talking about this,” Shaw says, gesturing at the hotel suite, “I kind of figured, as soon as I saw you standing there in that stupid gun shop.”

Root sits back on her heels and lets her appreciative gaze run down the length of Shaw’s body. “Hmm,” she says absentmindedly.

Curious, Shaw leans forward and kisses Root, hard and quick.

“What?” she murmurs against Root’s lips.

“Nothing,” Root says airily, but she’s already maneuvering her limbs around Shaw’s and rearranging their position.

“Root,” Shaw says, once she realizes why Root’s trying to get her to dangle each leg out either side of the bathtub.

“Don’t tell me you can’t handle some balancing exercises,” Root teases, supporting Shaw’s torso up and out of the water from underneath and settling herself comfortably between Shaw’s spread knees.

Shaw stares up at the ceiling, mildly exasperated. “If I end up falling back into the water—”

Her back arches up and her hands grip tightly at the sides of the tub as Root’s head lowers.

“I’m sure you’ll have enough self-control to be able to stay like this,” Root whispers when she pauses, coyly taunting, breath blowing warm.

She can’t see it, but she swears she can feel Root’s lips smirking against her.

“Ugh,” Shaw says.


	2. John Reese

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things we have learned so far:
> 
> 1) subtle, the machine is not  
> 2) root and shaw have actually been doing the thing for some time already!!! what!!!  
> 3) these two dorks don't seem to be mucking things up very much so far? but of course this means that henceforth everything shall be incredibly bumpy. posthaste.
> 
> also s/o to lostinillusia for helping me cobble together the title and then putting up with me complaining about this entire thing
> 
> additionally: cw for the final section of this chapter, which includes a scene where someone deliberately causes some pain to someone else.

“Hello, Finch.”

Finch jumps a little in his chair. “Oh, Mr. Reese. I didn’t hear you come in.”

Reese doesn’t smirk outright, but he settles onto the bench behind Finch’s workstation with a distinct air of self-satisfaction. “I came in a while ago.”

Finch squints at him for a second, then turns back to his desk. “Is there something I can help you with?”

Shrugging, Reese looks around at the library for Bear. “We haven’t had any new numbers in a while. Thought I’d come by and make sure everything was alright.”

There’s a small squeak from Finch’s chair as he leans back thoughtfully. “Although it has been a while since we’ve received a number, it hasn’t been unusually long. Am I to assume you’re bored, Mr. Reese?”

Reese grimaces a little. “Not bored so much as _annoyed_.”

“Ah. Ms. Shaw?”

Half of Reese’s grimace turns into a small smile. “I take it she’s been in contact with you, too.”

“That would be an understatement,” Finch says under his breath.

Reese’s smile grows. “Has Shaw just been asking about new missions, or…?”

With a nearly indiscernible trace of amusement, Finch sighs. “As I’m sure you’re aware, Ms. Shaw has been alternating her requests for updates on new numbers with inquiries about Ms. Groves’ location. One might almost think she was worried, which makes it likely that Ms. Groves is doing this intentionally.”

 “Oh, I wouldn’t let either of them hear you phrase it like _that_.”

Reese waves a new toy around to entice Bear’s attention, unleashing a barrage of Dutch praise on the dog under his breath when Bear trots up to greet him. Pausing for a moment, his gaze flicks back to Finch, before he says, “So, _are_ there any updates on Root’s whereabouts?”

“Why, John,” comes a coy voice, “Don’t tell me you were worried about me.”

Finch jumps a little in his chair, again, turning exasperatedly to find the owner of the voice strolling into the library with a smug smile. “Ms. Groves.”

Unruffled, Reese continues playing with Bear. “ _I_ wasn’t worried about you,” he replies, not bothering to look up at Root as she bends to quickly pat Bear on the head.

Root sets a bulky box on Finch’s workstation. “A present for you, Harry. I would’ve brought one for you, John, but I wasn’t sure you’d appreciate the intricacies of ham radio.”

“Your thoughtfulness is appreciated,” Finch says dryly, standing up and peering inside. “Should I bother to ask where you acquired this discontinued remote tuner?”

Root just smiles at Finch in response, leaning on his desk.

“Hmm,” Finch says, looking back into the box and poking around a bit.

“Got a mission, Root?” Reese asks, and the note of hopefulness in his voice isn’t lost on Root as she makes herself comfortable in Finch’s chair and begins looking things up on his computer, ignoring the plaintive look Finch shoots her when he realizes his seat was taken.

“Yes, _I_ do have a number,” Root says, not unkindly, as she pulls up what appears to be the reservation files of the hotel down the street. Wrinkling her nose a little, she smiles and continues, “She wants you all to enjoy a much-deserved break. Take a little vacation. Kick back and relax.”

“Well, that doesn’t seem fair,” Reese says, only slightly disappointed. “Don’t you get a chance to… kick back?”

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Root says, pausing her perusal of a pretty blonde woman’s file to wink at Finch. “She makes sure I get my kicks in.”

Finch blinks at her, then picks up the box and walks into the other room.

Reese doesn’t say anything, but he carefully notes down the information on the computer screen from his crouched position on the floor with Bear, before Root pulls up more pictures of the blonde. “I take it this European diplomat is part of your next mission.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Root says, as if it had just occurred to her. Tapping a thoughtful finger on the screen, she considers Meredith Blake’s pictures. “She’s just your type, isn’t she? Slim, blonde, young…”

Reese chooses not to dignify that with an answer.

“In that case,” Root says playfully, collecting her things without bothering to close any of her windows, “If it turns out that your brand of tall, dark, and deranged is more her type than, well, mine, I might be giving you a call.”

“Ah,” Reese says, smirking a little. “So the Machine’s got you running one of _those_ missions.”

Smiling in response, almost patronizingly, Root pats Bear’s head again as she walks past, then pats Reese’s head, too, just for good measure.

Reese’s hands go up to his head, making sure she hadn’t ruffled a hair out of place.

“Shaw was looking for you,” he calls after her, just before she turns the corner.

Root’s steps falter, just briefly, but just as quickly, she pretends she hadn’t heard him and continues on her way, disappearing from sight.

“Is Ms. Groves gone?” Finch calls from the adjoining room, after a few minutes have passed.

“Yes, it’s safe to come out now, Finch,” Reese says, amusedly.

Finch makes his way back into the room, frowning a little at Reese as he walks by.

“I suppose we should warn Ms. Shaw that Ms. Groves is indeed still in one piece,” Finch muses, disapprovingly taking in the mess of tabs and windows Root had left open on his computer. “And in town.”

Reese gets up and goes to stand behind Finch, considering the screen with an almost imperceptibly mischievous expression on his face. “Yes, I suppose we should,” he says, voice carefully neutral.

Finch squints suspiciously up at him anyway. “Very well, I’ll call her and—”

“Oh, I’ve got it, Harold,” Reese interrupts, giving Bear a quick goodbye before making to leave the library. “Don’t worry about it.”

Bear whines a little as he watches Reese stride away, settling his head on his paws as he lies back down at Finch’s feet.

“I know,” Finch says to Bear after a moment, sounding resigned. “I know. I think we ought to be worried, too.”

 

* * *

 

 

“I can’t believe you forgot the comms. And the _notes_ about this mission that Harold left us,” Shaw grouses.

“Honest mistake,” Reese says, opening his suitcase and sliding the guns over to Shaw, almost as if he’s trying to distract her from their conversation.

Shaw squints at him, feeling a growing sense of trepidation growing without knowing _why_ , and grabs all of the guns before he has a chance to pull them back.

“Should’ve known better than to let you do all the prep for this mission,” Shaw scowls, clambering onto the hotel bed. She begins to assemble one of the guns.

Reese just stands there, and he isn’t _smiling_ at her, but there’s a definite sense of… something.

“What?” she finally asks.

“Sit tight, alright?” Reese asks. “I’ll just run back to the library and get everything, and then we can get started when I’m back.”

“Well, go, then,” Shaw says, making shooing motions at him.

“Going,” Reese says, and now he’s definitely grinning. “Just wait here, okay? Root’s somewhere in this hotel, but we don’t know the situation yet, so don’t run off looking for her without any comms.”

“Yes, fine,” Shaw barks impatiently. “Are you going to go or not?”

“Promise me you’re going to wait for me to come back,” Reese says firmly, eyebrows raised. It’s as if he doesn’t know Shaw at all, or her opinion of useless and stupid _promises_.

So Shaw doesn’t say anything, just clicks the safety off the newly assembled gun from the suitcase that Reese had just handed over to her.

“Bye,” Reese says hastily.

Shaw rolls her eyes and starts looking around the hotel room for something to eat, unsurprised when there aren’t even any cashews in the mini-fridge.

Reluctantly, she thinks back to the fancy-ass room the Machine had gotten her and Root nearly two months ago. That one had been filled to the brim with chocolates, and now she can’t even find the room service menu in this stupid room, _and_ it’s lunch time.

Mulling over the idea that the Machine might have set Root up in a similarly luxurious room at this hotel (or at least one with more amenities than the one she’s stuck in right now), Shaw goes to find her jacket, intent on calling Root.

She frowns when her pockets turn up empty.

Rapidly checking literally everywhere else her phone could have ended up in the room, and absolutely certain she hadn’t misplaced or forgotten it, the only conclusion Shaw can come to is that Reese had swiped it when she’d helped him carry the suitcase up.

Shaw scowls. That’s what she gets for being helpful when she sees a teammate struggling with a pathetically light suitcase.

Shaw leans on the edge of the bed, arms crossed. Something very, very fishy is going on. Something fishy had been going on ever since Bear had whimpered oddly as they were leaving.

“You were warning me, weren’t you, buddy?” she mutters.

Shaw shrugs her jacket back on and heads down to the reception desk. If nothing else, she isn’t going to wait to find out whatever the hell is going on, on an empty stomach. She doesn’t know which alias Root had checked in under, but she’s going to start with Kelly Dyson and go down the list from there.

She’s standing patiently in line at reception, mentally cataloguing all of Root’s known aliases and deciding how to best create a distraction so she can get behind the desk and search for all of them herself. She’ll probably need about twelve seconds per alias, plus the time it would take to get behind the desk and then back out without anyone noticing…

A familiar laugh coming from the elevators makes her turn, then freeze in place.

Yeah, Root is at this hotel, alright.

And apparently Root is at this hotel with a leggy blonde.

A leggy blonde in a tight skirt who’s just pushed Root up against the wall of the elevator car, bodies pressing together _far closer than absolutely necessary_ , and Root’s wide-eyed expression is staring at Shaw from over the leggy blonde’s shoulder.

Shocked, Shaw can feel herself smirking and waving as the elevator doors close on Root’s ashen face, and she’s never been so grateful to have gone on autopilot as she is at this moment.

Clearly, Root had absolutely no idea Shaw was going to be here at the same hotel, much less on the same planet.

She is going to kill Reese. Slowly. With a toothpick.

But first, she’s going to upgrade her room and order everything off the room service menu while she waits for him to get back.

 

* * *

 

 

“Er, Miss Shaw?”

Shaw opens one eye and scowls at the towel boy standing in her sunlight.

“There’s a phone call for you?”

“Not me,” Shaw replies, closing her eye and trying to dismiss him.

“Er, the gentleman was pretty detailed in his description of you—”

Shaw cracks one eye open again. “Gentleman” probably means that Finch is on the other end, so she sighs and reaches out for the phone.

“Hello?” Shaw barks, smiling a little when the towel boy scarpers to the other end of the pool at the sound.

“Ms. Shaw, _why_ —”

“Ask Reese,” Shaw interrupts. “Take the credit card charges out of his salary or something.”

“But—”

“Relax, I’m not going to charge much more onto your card. Except maybe dinner. And drinks.”

There’s a pause as Finch does a rough estimate of the cost of dinner and drinks for Shaw.

“Oh, dear.”

“And if you see him, tell Reese he better not poke his head back into this hotel. He’ll know why.”

“Ms. Shaw, I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist that I stay out of whatever you are all up to.”

Shaw beckons the towel boy back from the very respectful 150 feet of distance he’d given her to maintain the privacy of the call. As he hurries back over, Shaw says, “Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you. But I’ll help you find a brand new big lug once we’re in need of one.”

A loud sigh is clearly audible even as Shaw hands the phone back to the nervous towel boy.

Shaw’s barely closed her eyes for more than ten minutes before she feels someone standing in the way of her sunlight again.

“I’ll have another scotch on the rocks,” Shaw says without opening her eyes.

“How did I know I’d find you lounging at the pool?”

Shaw scowls and closes her eyes even harder when she feels Root sit on the edge of her lounge chair. It’s already a fairly warm day, and she’s been absorbing a lot of solar energy, and the last thing she needs is for the heat she can feel radiating off of Root to get added to that.

“Is this new?”

Hand shooting out and grabbing Root’s wrist before Root can run her finger down the strap of her bikini, Shaw reluctantly opens her eyes when she feels Root’s wrist go limp in her grip.

“What do you want?”

“Just to say hi,” Root says, tilting her head as she smiles down at Shaw, but there’s a faint hint of wariness edging out the expression on her face, and Shaw’s eyes narrow.

“So you said it,” Shaw says, forcefully letting go of Root’s wrist. “Now stop blocking my sunlight.”

But of course, instead, Root just leans closer, and Shaw glares as Root’s face gets closer to hers.

“Why are you here, Sameen?” Root asks, quietly.

Shaw’s ear tingles where Root’s breath brushes up against it, and she huffs slightly, annoyed. “I wanted to get some sunlight.”

She can feel the soft exhale accompanying Root’s smile, and she hates that she needs to resist turning towards it.

 “What about you?” Shaw asks waspishly, tone stemming more from a curious lack of air in her lungs than anything inconvenient like _feelings_. “Isn’t there a guest at this hotel you’re supposed to be seducing right now?”

Root leans back, and it feels like a rush of air pours into Shaw’s lungs all at once, overwhelmingly, when she sees Root smile a little without denying it.

Shaw gets up, forcing Root to scoot over a bit lest she fall off the lounge chair. She looks around, and finds the same towel boy from before staring intently at them. She can’t decide if he’s being extremely attentive or a little bit creepy, but she signals him over anyway to get a towel.

“Meredith, wasn’t that her name?” Shaw says, noting that the pool boy is looking even sweatier and nervously red-faced than the last time Shaw had called him over. “You’d better get back to her.”

She doesn’t notice the glint of metal peeking out from under the towel he’s handing to her until it’s almost too late, and she quickly shoves Root out of the way before executing a perfect roundhouse kick and snapping the towel and gun away.

The thud of the stupid boy falling to the ground is lost in the loud splash of Root crashing face-first into the pool.

Shaw steps back from the edge, lest a hand come up to try to pull her down by the ankle. She studies Root splashing around, flustered, in the pool, with a small smile on her face.

Okay, so maybe she _had_ been aiming for the pool a little bit when she’d saved Root’s life.

 

* * *

 

 

“At the risk of repeating myself,” Root says, voice intimately low, “I do love when you play doctor.”

She winces as Shaw intentionally prods at her with the antiseptic a little harsher than necessary in response, but that just makes her smile grow a little more.

“Of all the ways you could have gotten hurt on this mission, you probably picked _the_ lamest way,” Shaw grouches at her, but capable hands resume their mostly gentle tending of her minor wound.

“I did have some help from you,” Root says lightly.

“You’re welcome,” Shaw mutters.

Root’s gaze had dropped down and stayed riveted on Shaw’s mouth a long time ago, and so she doesn’t miss the slight tug at the corner of Shaw’s lips.

Leaning back with both hands on the bed, Root tilts her head up as Shaw frowns and leans forward to follow the cut on her forehead. She waits until it looks like Shaw’s just about done, before sitting back up and bringing their faces scant inches apart.

Shaw’s eyes flick down to her mouth.

Root lets her lips leisurely pull themselves into a smirk, knowing just how hard it is for Shaw to look away when her mouth moves slowly like this.

They stay frozen like that, eyes locked on each other’s lips, breathlessly noting each intake and exhale, for a few seconds that feel longer than an hour, before Shaw abruptly drops the antiseptic and Root determinedly grasps at Shaw’s waist.

They fall back onto the bed, with Root pulling Shaw on top of her, mouths moving quickly and recklessly against each other. Shaw’s bottom half is still wrapped with the towel acting as a sarong, and Root plays with the string holding her bikini top together at the back of her neck.

Biting down hard on Root’s lip as she presses both hands down into Root’s shoulders, Shaw slowly lifts herself up and off of Root.

Root half-follows her up, lip still caught between Shaw’s teeth, acquiescing and letting her hands run back down along the length of Shaw’s back, guiding Shaw’s torso back down to rest against hers.

Hissing when Root applies pressure to the still-healing rib she’d bruised on her last mission, the fleeting question of how Root knew it was there escapes Shaw’s mind as Root’s fingers tangle firmly in her hair.

They kiss and suck and nip and sigh for some time, with Root’s leg hooking around Shaw’s waist to roll them over, and Shaw’s pelvis grinding up just before every moan.

Root presses down on her tender ribcage again, and Shaw gasps and lets herself be flipped over. Root’s nails scratch down along her back, followed by a series of bites and licks winding down past the small of her back and lingering at the hem of her towel.

Shaw’s eyes fly open, suddenly clear, when she feels Root’s fingers slipping under the towel, and she groans in frustration. “Wait, wait.”

Root’s fingers still, lightly resting on Shaw’s inner thigh, and she presses one last kiss along Shaw’s spine. “What do you—”

“No,” Shaw says, trying to control her heart rate. She turns over, and Root hovers above her, panting, eyebrows raised.

“Don’t you still have a… number, that you’re… working on right now?”

Root stares down at Shaw, still out of breath, mind stuttering and clouded. Eventually she blinks and then sits back on Shaw’s legs, resting her hands almost primly on Shaw’s knees.

Root watches Shaw stare up at the ceiling, trying to decipher the angry look on her face.

“Right,” Root says, after some time. “The number. Meredith.”

Shaw rubs at her face with her hands, and Root can’t see Shaw’s expression anymore, so she shifts herself off of Shaw’s legs and sits on the edge of the bed.

She waits until Shaw sits up and looks at her, eyes almost appearing placid in their darkness.

Root manages a half-hearted smile, and tries for an innuendo-laden joke, but her tone falls flat. “I don’t suppose you’d want to join in on the fun.”

Shaw’s gaze drops to the bedcover, and there’s a twist in her mouth as she flatly shakes her head.

“Right, of course,” Root says, getting up off the bed and adjusting her clothes.

All she’d needed to do was identify the threat on the diplomat’s life, and now that the jealous stalker had been incapacitated, she wonders where she’s supposed to go to pretend to work on a mission that Shaw already wrapped up for her, apparently unknowingly.

She stares at herself in the mirror as she tries to rearrange her hair, gaze pulled over to Shaw’s reflection every so often.

“Well, this room’s already been paid for, so it’s yours to enjoy for the rest of the night,” Root says after a while. She hesitates, then adds, “I won’t be back tonight.”

It’s clear from the jumping nerve in Shaw’s clenched jaw that she definitely isn’t _pleased_ about the prospect of Root leaving her to go off and get in between the sheets with someone else, but it’s just as clear to Root that Shaw would be even more displeased if anything even resembling “commitment” or “relationship” or “emotions” was even _thought_ , much less mentioned.

The idea of intentionally, seriously tricking Shaw into thinking she’s sleeping with other people makes her feel like her insides are slowly filling up with sand, but the idea of letting Shaw push her away altogether after being confronted with these feelings makes her feel like every part of her is rapidly turning into molten tar.

As she does up her boots, sluggishly, feeling as though the pit of her stomach is burning, Root ignores the buzzing in her ear. She’s nowhere near being in the mood for having Her offer ways to explain the situation to Shaw.

“No, I’m leaving, too, in a bit,” Shaw mutters. “I hate hotels.”

Root’s hand pauses on the doorknob for half a second, before she takes a silent, deep breath and walks through the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes this was basically poi-style parent trap


	3. Lionel Fusco

Root can’t decide what her favourite part about this car ride has been so far, but she knows it has something to do with her comfortable forward-leaning position from the middle of the backseat.

Every time she so much as turns her head to the right, she can see Fusco shift himself closer towards the passenger side door and further away from both her and Shaw, probably not even aware that he’s doing it.

And every time she turns her head to the left, she gets to breathe Shaw in, deeply, steadily closer to the nape of Shaw’s neck, and she gets to watch Shaw’s shoulders tense up increasingly, each time.

None of this, of course, even accounts for the useful tidbits of information She’s feeding her, which she then helpfully relays to the other two in the front.

“There’s free parking about 0.2 miles from the building, which is 0.3 miles walking, but if we want we can also park just behind the street because their parking patrol doesn’t come around till 11 to 13 minutes past each hour.

“Oh, you’ll be coming up on a pothole in about six seconds—

“And if you gas it now we can make it past the yellow light—

“And there’s a woman with a stroller jaywalking so you might want to slow down, Sameen—”

And so when Shaw brakes, parks, switches off the engine, and practically hurls herself out of the driver’s seat within the span of one truly impressive second upon arrival, Root just sits back in her seat, amused, for a brief moment.

“Well, go on, Looney Tunes,” Fusco says, without turning from his less-than-casual position against the side of the car door.

“You’re not joining us, Lionel?” she asks as she exits the car to join Shaw on the sidewalk. “Break-ins are so fun.”

Fusco leans out the window and looks up at the two of them. “I’m a cop, you know.”

Half a dozen dry comments appear to be fighting their way out of Shaw, but Root beats her to it, with a sweet smile and a gentle tap on Fusco’s nose before he gets the chance to hurriedly pull his head back inside the car.

“And occasionally quite a morally bankrupt one, at that,” she says fondly.

Root resists the urge to loop her arm through Shaw’s as they walk down the street, waving her fingers merrily over her shoulder in response to Fusco’s muffled grumbling from within the car.

“Nice neighbourhood,” Shaw says, after a moment, eyeing the trendy brownstones they’re passing by.

Root looks at her, smiling a little, then gives in and threads their arms together. “Around here, maybe,” she says.

Shaw squints up ahead. “Are we heading _there_?” she asks, nodding at the looming side street that Root is tugging her towards. It looks remarkably less reputable than the one they’re currently walking on.

Root just pulls Shaw’s arm closer in response, grinning winsomely.

Before Shaw gets a chance to roll her eyes, a voice calls out to her.

“Excuse me, do I know you?”

Shaw whirls, recognizing the voice. Root turns too, head tilting curiously, as she lets Shaw hurriedly shake her off.

“Um, Sameen, right? Dr. Sameen—”

“Ah, I don’t—no,” Shaw says quickly, cutting the woman off, eyes flicking quickly towards Root.

Root’s hands slide into her pockets as she stands back and watches the interaction play out. A wry smile makes its way onto her face. It isn’t as though she hadn’t trawled through Shaw’s ISA file and discovered Shaw’s real last name before they’d ever even met.

“No,” Shaw repeats, eyeing the other woman apprehensively.

“Are you sure?” the woman asks slowly, then points at herself. “Dr.—well, Watson? Joan Watson? We did our residencies together before you were, uh—”

“You must have me confused for someone else,” Shaw says flatly.

Root sizes the other woman up. She’s extremely pretty, and for some reason she’s having a lot of difficulty letting go of the idea that she recognizes Shaw. Root frowns.

“Oh,” this Watson person says, looking disappointed. “Right, I had heard that she had… passed away, a while ago. You look _just_ like her.”

Shaw’s trying to arrange her expression into what she imagines someone might look like upon hearing that a stranger’s friend had passed away some time ago. “Sorry,” she says awkwardly, shifting from one foot to another and beginning to back away.

“Oh, no,” Watson says, lifting her hands apologetically, as she turns away. “I’m sorry. I could have sworn…”

Shaw spins and begins quickly walking away. For a moment, Root watches the other woman glance back over her shoulder as she walks in the opposite direction, before turning and following Shaw down the street into the apartment building their number lives in.

Gingerly stepping into the building lobby and taking a look at the suspiciously discoloured floor tiles, Root and Shaw exchange a glance.

Well, she thinks to herself, eyeing Shaw’s backside as they climb the stairs, everything about this place can only be described as uniquely _New York._

In fact, she’s relieved to be back, taking a relatively low-risk field trip with Shaw. And… Fusco, if the chewing noises coming in over the comms link are any reminder of their third partner on this op.

“What a pit,” Shaw mutters, breaking the almost-silence, nose wrinkled in disgust. “Why would anyone want to kill someone who lives here? It’s not even sketchy, it’s just… sad.”

They stop outside their number’s door.

Shaw looks at Root questioningly, and Root pauses, then says, “Obviously this place doesn’t have any security cameras, and She can’t see anything useful through the webcam.”

Nodding, Shaw knocks on the door. She barely waits two seconds before pulling out a knife to try to jimmy the lock.

“Wait,” Root says, reaching out to stop her. “Wexler might be inside.”

“We knocked,” Shaw says plaintively. She looks down at Root’s hand on hers, but doesn’t comment.

Root smiles briefly down at Shaw. “The Machine is informing me that this Ilana Wexler may have ding dong ditched one too many doors to be in the habit of regularly answering hers.”

“Ding dong… what?”

Turning to face Shaw squarely, Root grins, letting her hand settle more firmly on Shaw’s warm wrist. “Didn’t you ever get pranked as a child, Sam?”

Shaw’s eyes narrow. “ _I_ did the pranking.”

Shaw lifts her other hand to knock on the door again, leaving the one in contact with Root’s in place. Root can’t help but grin, but she doesn’t comment on it, either. Instead, she just lets her index finger gently run back and forth, once.

“If you can call it pranking,” Shaw continues, after a moment, eyes fixed on Root’s fingers, motionless now, but still wrapped around her wrist.

“I suppose by pranking, you mean…”

“… Surprise enforcing,” Shaw says delicately.

Root huffs in laughter, giving Shaw’s wrist a quick squeeze as if to say, _of course_ , then pulls her hand away to let Shaw continue with breaking into the apartment.

A small smirk is clearly visible on Shaw’s face as her brows furrow in concentration, and Root leans against the wall next to the door, watching contentedly.

As they walk into the apartment and take a look around, Root clears her throat. “So, Joan Watson…”

Shaw’s shoulders stiffen almost imperceptibly, which she tries to hide by aimlessly opening and closing random drawers in the kitchen.

Root’s debating whether or not she ought to ask for more details on Shaw’s life before all of this, when the comms link crackles.

“Wait a minute. Did you say Joan Watson? That’s who you were talking to before?”

“ _You_ know her, Fusco?” Shaw asks apprehensively.

“Heard of her,” Fusco says. “She works with this hotshot consultant down at the 11th. Guy named Holmes.”

“Wait. She’s a doctor-turned-cop?” Root asks, amused.

“They’re not cops, they’re PIs, and I guess so.”

Root darts a glance over at Shaw, who’s silently tossing through Ilana Wexler’s belongings. Root watches Shaw find a startlingly enormous dildo under a couch cushion with only a perfunctory, mostly distracted reaction of disgust, and decides not to openly pry into Shaw’s previous life anymore.

Not in front of her, anyway.

“Funny guy,” Fusco says.

“Who?” Root asks, glad to steer the topic away.

“Holmes. His first name is Sher…man, or something like that. Word has it he’s a weird guy.”

Root makes a noncommittal noise to indicate she’s listening, following Shaw into the number’s bedroom.

“He’s a Brit.”

“Right,” Root says, trying to tug the closet door open.

“That’s probably half of it. His weirdness, I mean.”

It’s stuck.

“He’s supposed to be almost as crazy as you, Honey Nut Cheerios.”

Root tugs on the closet door a little harder, annoyed, aware that Shaw is watching her struggle. “What was that?”

“I said _almost_.”

“Aww,” Root smiles, still tugging on the closet door, slightly mollified. “Thanks, Lionel.”

 Shaw gestures impatiently for her to move out of the way, but she doesn’t have much more luck with the door than Root did.

“So, is he really nearly as fun as I am?” Root asks Her without thinking, half jokingly.

“How would I know? Never met the guy. Neither has Shaw, probably.”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Root says automatically.

Shaw whirls around in alarm, and the door comes unstuck suddenly. Shaw stumbles back a bit, drawing closer to Root with a stern look on her face.

They stare at each other for a second, wordlessly having a rapid-fire conversation, but Fusco beats them to it: “Great. Are you talking to that voice in your head again?”

“Ah…” Root says, stalling, making a face at Shaw.

Shaking her head vigorously, Shaw jabs a finger accusingly at Root, before putting a hand to her earpiece.

“What took you so long to open this door?” Shaw demands, trying to artificially change the subject. The annoyance in her voice is real.

“It was stuck,” Root says, latching onto the topic.

Shaw walks into the closet and closes it after her, before easily pushing it open and coming back out. “Or you’re just severely lacking in upper arm strength.”

“We know _that’s_ not true,” Root says, voice dropping suggestively, but still clearly audible over the comms link.

Fusco sighs loudly.

Root grins at the sound of the crackle coming through her earpiece. “Besides, it’s probably easier from the inside. And I loosened it for you.”

Shaw folds her arms, unconvinced. “I bet you just can’t open it, even from the inside.”

Laughing a little, Root pulls Shaw into the closet with her. “Fine, look—”

Root pushes against the door again.

It’s stuck again.

Avoiding Shaw’s undoubtedly smug gaze – no easy feat considering their squashed proximity inside a closet that was certainly not designed to be the walk-in type – Root keeps pushing against the door.

Finally, she huffs. “This is…”

Shaw waits till Root looks over at her in a mixture of exasperation and defeat, before smirking and leaning against the door. “I told y—”

Shaw stops abruptly, then leans harder into the door with a frown.

A pleased giggle escapes Root, before the smile drops off her face. “Oh, no.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Just get your ass over here, and take the knife I left on the counter, and—”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Wh—” Shaw splutters.

Root had stopped trying to bargain with Fusco a long time ago, resigned to just standing there, and probably a hair’s breadth away from pressing Shaw against the door and seeing if _that_ would work. Shaw’s alarmingly aware of the soft, rhythmic puffs of warm breath tickling at the side of her neck, and she pounds on the door even harder.

“You came all the way up here, so you might as well just _open this door_ , and—”

Fusco taps against the door from the outside. “Not until you tell me who the nutball keeps talking to. You got a Glasses 2.0 I don’t know about?”

“Listen, you little—”

Root just shakes her head and places a hand on the small of Shaw’s back, signaling to try a different tack. “Don’t bother, Sameen. This is exactly why we always say Fusco’s our least useful team member.”

Unruffled, Fusco retorts from outside, “I can still hear you, you know. You think that’s gonna get me to help you faster? In fact, I think I’m just gonna go wait in the car for you two _useful_ kids to find a way out on your own.”

Shaw opens her mouth as they hear footsteps retreating, ready to yell for Fusco to come back, but then closes it abruptly.

Right. He can still hear them.

She tugs at the bottom of Root’s shirt, looking up at her with raised eyebrows.

Root takes in the devious smirk on Shaw’s face, and a grin nearly splits her face.

Leaning in closer to Shaw’s earpiece and mic, Root hums lightly. “I guess now that we’re _alone_ …”

“ _Root_ ,” Shaw says, proud that it manages to come out sounding like both a warning and an anticipatory response.

“Oh, brother,” comes Fusco’s voice.

They grin at each other, barely separated in the small confines of the closet.

“Yes, Sameen?” Root breathes, and it seems like she’s starting to get really into the act, as her lips lightly (and unnecessarily) brush against Shaw’s hair.

Shaw exhales, tilting her face up and letting Root’s fingers play lightly down her throat.

“You know what, Lucy and Ethel? Nice try. Have a blast in there.” A small click signals Fusco hanging up on them, but their chests have just come into contact with one another, and it’s clear that Root hadn’t heard it as she bends and sighs breathily into Shaw’s ear.

“It’s been a while,” Root whispers, dipping further and pressing her lips to the junction where Shaw’s jaw meets her neck.

“Hmm,” Shaw murmurs, hand running of its own accord along Root’s hip. She wonders if she should let Root know there’s no point to this entire exercise anymore, now that Fusco isn’t listening in.

“ _Oh_ ,” Root suddenly says, moaning far louder than was strictly warranted by Shaw sliding her hands into Root’s back pockets.

Shaw draws back, startled, and finds Root grinning down at her, looking far more mischievous and far less _affected_ than Shaw feels.

“Let’s make it good,” Root mouths silently, clearly trying to suppress her giggles.

Shaw rolls her eyes, on the verge of letting Root know that Fusco had hung up already, but then Root pushes her firmly into the door with a loud _whumpf_ , hips pressing hard into hers, and Shaw can’t help the breathless gasp that escapes.

“That’s more like it.”

“Root,” Shaw says, trying to hold onto a fleeting sense of exasperation, but her hands are bracketing either side of Root’s ribcage.

Root’s got one hand pushing her chin up and exposing her throat, and the other against her sternum, palms nearly as hot as the exaggerated breaths being blown into her mic. Stifling a groan as Root starts leaving noisy kisses down to her collarbone, Shaw’s grip tightens and instinctively pulls Root closer in to her, before pushing at Root’s forehead to tilt her face up.

“Mmngh,” Root says, when Shaw lunges upward and crashes their lips together.

Shaw’s got both hands gripping the front of Root’s shirt, pulling her down, trying to flip them around. Struggling, they crash around in the closet, until Root drops her forearms from where they’re trying to cage Shaw in against the door, and wraps one arm around Shaw’s waist, as her other hand slides down between their hips.

Breaking their kiss but keeping her head tilted up, Shaw’s eyes open, her long, slow exhale bordering on a moan as she catches and keeps Root’s gaze. Shaw’s hips rock forward against Root’s hand, pressing into Root as well, and Shaw bares her teeth as she takes in the easy smile on Root’s face.

Watching Root’s face slowly descend towards hers again, Shaw stays stubbornly frozen in place, save for jutting her hips forward once more just to see the involuntary flutter in Root’s eyelashes.

Root’s about a millisecond away from pulling Shaw’s bottom lip in between her teeth, when suddenly she stops, gaze going unfocused and travelling up and to the right.

“No, we’re fine,” Root says, after a moment. Her eyes flick down to look at Shaw, a pleased smirk growing on her face. “Oh, he did, did he?”

Clenching her eyes shut for a second, Shaw exhales again, this time in annoyance rather than arousal. Shoving Root off of her, Shaw brushes invisible lint off her pants, scowling at Root’s smile gleaming at her in the semi-darkness.

“Fusco’s been ordered to come back and get us out of here,” Root says lightly.

Shaw ignores her, eyeing the door again, wondering if she could get enough momentum going to be able to just break right through the door.

“And She says we don’t want to leave any trace of having been here,” Root adds, as though everyone knows what’s going through Shaw’s mind right now.

Shaw sniffs in response and silently crosses her arms, opting not to let her or the Machine have the satisfaction of knowing they were right.

 

* * *

 

 

“It’s been half an hour. Where the hell is he?”

“Tailing the number, apparently.”

“When I get out of here, I am going to _shove_ his—”

“Have you always been this… emphatic, Sameen?”

Shaw pulls her knees up in irritation. They’re both sitting with their backs against the door, not _touching_ , but, nearly, and the warmth radiating off of Root seems almost palpable.

“What do you mean?” she says, after a while. It’s not like there’s anything else to do in here besides talk. That, and stew over all the different ways she’s going to make Fusco sorry he didn’t help them in the first place.

She feels Root shrug, rather than turning her head to see it. “You mentioned being an ‘enforcer,’ when you were young.”

Shaw grins, not unlike a shark, making sure to face Root. “People had to know what the rules were,” she says simply.

“Rules like, ‘just because you’re taller doesn’t mean you _ever_ cut in front of me in line at the cafeteria, you little maggot,’ or—”

Shaw jabs a finger at Root, taken aback. “Where did you read that?”

Root smiles.

“Right. My file,” Shaw says, heaving a sigh. “The real one.”

“I might have taken a peek into all of them,” Root shrugs.

Shaw shakes her head, trying to refuse to engage with Root any further.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Root says, unruffled by Shaw’s body language clearly indicating she _doesn’t care_ , “I didn’t find all the rest of your aliases till just before we worked together for the first time.”

Shaw frowns. “Did the Machine give them to you?”

“Oh, no,” Root says. “Or, well, She didn’t _stop_ me from finding them, but that doesn’t really count.”

“And that’s when you decided to start messing with me?” Shaw asks, exasperated and a little angry at the thought of Root having started off armed with _that_ much more information than her. “Why were you so interested in me, anyway?”

Root pauses, and there’s the slightest hint of evasiveness in her voice when she replies, trying to maintain the levity in her tone from before. “I… just wanted to make sure we’d be able to work well together.”

There’s a loaded silence for some time. Broodingly, Shaw sets her jaw, intent on getting a more satisfactory answer out of Root, but when she swivels, she’s taken aback by an uncomfortable expression and mildly anxious lip biting.

It quickly disappears as Root slides her unflustered, flirtatious mask back on when she notices Shaw watching her. Shaw wets her lips, then looks down, pretending not to have seen any of it.

Between the two of them, she’s not sure who’s feeling more uncomfortable as the topic draws closer to actually talking about their feeli—whatever this is, this thing that they’re doing.

 

* * *

 

 

 

It’s been nearly an hour and a half since Root had accidentally locked them into this closet, and the awkward, heavy silence had smoothed out into something more familiar some time ago.

“You know, I don’t think I ever apologized for turning you down for our fourth date,” Root suddenly says.

“What?” Shaw asks, not sure she’d heard correctly. She sizes Root up from the corner of her eye, not liking the playful tone of Root’s voice at all.

“You remember. When you said you wanted to show me a good time that was better than sex.”

“ _What_?” Shaw has absolutely zero recollection of this.

Root just grins at her. “In St. Louis.”

“How would _that_ have been our fourth date?” Shaw demands.

Cocking her head interestedly, Root tries to decide how to point out her amusement at the part that Shaw had found objectionable.

“I mean—Because, we’ve never—We’re not, we don’t date,” Shaw adds quickly, glaring at Root. _Daring_ her to say something.

Root nods silently, but she’s sure the broad smile on her face is speaking volumes enough.

“What,” Shaw grumbles. It’s less a question and more a muttered expression of befuddlement, as Shaw picks at the carpet angrily.

“Think about it, though,” Root says, leaning her head back against the door. “The first time we met, when I was Veronica, and we were going to take things to a whole new level—”

“No,” Shaw says flatly.

“But then that was cut short,” Root says, affecting a facetious pout. “But then a little birdie told me you couldn’t wait to see me again, which was convenient, because I felt the same way.”

“Stop talking.”

“And then I got to take you on our second date at the CIA safehouse, and then you came back later and took those guys out for me. I was so touched. I guess I showed you just the _best_ time, and you didn’t want it to end.”

Root’s really enjoying the way Shaw’s lips are so pursed so hard, it almost looks as though she’s trying to make a funny face.

“And our third date, with the jet in Alaska,” Root says, smiling easily at her.

Shaw opens her mouth as if to say something, then appears to think better of it.

“I know,” Root says. It’s easily apparent to her what Shaw was about to – but would never allow herself to – say. “We got to spend some snippets of time together before that. But I wouldn’t count the time I rescued you from Control or when you patched me up as _dates_.”

Shaw shakes her head, obviously extremely irritated.

“You know me,” Root says, playfully nudging Shaw’s shoulder with her own. “When I take you out on a date, it’s a real adventure.”

Shaw still looks annoyed, but there’s an increasing amount of amusement mingling with the frustration in her sighs now.

“And to be fair to you, you did try more than a few times before our third date.”

Burying her face in her hands, Shaw mumbles, “ _What?_ ” under her breath.

“All those times you came looking for me, so we could spend some quality time together?” Root prompts.

Shaw’s face is still buried in her hands, but Root continues, undeterred.

“Sadly, it just wasn’t in Her plans for us. Especially that time you asked me out for a follow-up date when we were in Miami.”

“Root, listen to me very carefully,” Shaw finally grits out, lifting her head up and aiming her most withering glare at Root. “I did not, and have never, _asked you out_.”

“I think I’ve more than made it up to you since then, though,” Root says thoughtfully. “And so has She, really.”

“Listen,” Shaw says, pointing a threatening finger in Root’s face for emphasis, “The day that I ask you out will be the day th—”

Shaw breaks off her line of thought, interrupted by the way Root had just suddenly managed to come as close to her as imaginable without them actually touching.

“Yes, Sameen?” Root asks, eyes dancing with anticipation.

Snapping her jaw shut, Shaw scooches away, looking not unlike a sullen child.

Root looks at her fondly, glad to have broken all the tension that had been steadily building since they’d run into Shaw’s old colleague on the street.

“Well,” she says happily, “I’m sure I’ll find out the rest of that sentence _someday_.”

“That’s it,” Shaw announces, clearing her throat. “We’re getting out of here. This ends now.”

Root quirks her mouth at that, but she’s not in disagreement with the sentiment. “What if we end up dying in here?” she asks jokingly. “Would anyone even come looking for us?”

The mood takes an abrupt nosedive back into serious contemplation, as Shaw picks around the hinges of the door with a distant look on her face. She mulls over the latter question, frowning a little.

“Everyone already thinks I’m dead, anyway,” Shaw eventually says.

Root doesn’t say anything at first, just watches Shaw and thinks about Watson and entire previous lives from before all of _this_. She runs her fingers along the bottom of the door, and thinks about old colleagues and friends, and the concept of missing someone or worrying about them.

“Nobody ever bothered wondering about me,” she replies.

Shaw shoots her a sharp look. “I have. And so has John, and Harold, and probably the Machine.”

Root looks at her for a moment, because that’s not what she meant and Shaw knows that.

Turning back to stare down at the rusted door hinge, Shaw chews on her bottom lip, thinking.

“I…” she says, uncharacteristically hesitant. “There aren’t many people I’d go looking for.”

Root nods. For some reason she can’t bring herself to look at Shaw.

“If I did – when I do go looking for someone,” Shaw says, voice getting increasingly harder as she tries to fill it with her normal bluster, “It’s probably you.”

Stilling her hands from their meandering path along the gap between the door and the ground, Root averts her gaze, feeling Shaw’s eyes on her.

She’s starting to hate silence. It’s been filled with more words than either of them ever intended to say to one another, today, and Root tries hard to think of a way to fill it with the normal, safe, inane prattle that’s familiar to them.

“I mean, you’re always running off to God knows where,” Shaw adds belatedly, voice hovering somewhere between grumbling and nonchalant.

Root looks up, finally.

She opens her mouth, and she knew it – she knew she’d be unable to tear her eyes away from that _look_ on Shaw’s face, the one that Root’s starting to recognize. The one that Root tries to avoid, because this isn’t what Shaw’s ready for quite yet, if ever.

Root can see it in the way Shaw’s forcing herself to swallow, and the way her nostrils are flaring just the slightest. The way she’s visibly resisting the urge to blink, or look away, or bite on her lip, as she waits for Root to say something.

“I found a hairpin,” Root says.

And now Root can see the measured exhale, the tension released from Shaw’s features. Shaw blinks, and there’s a slight twist in her mouth, and relief is written all over her face.

Root tries not to notice what else is lurking, right underneath the relief.

She holds the hairpin out to Shaw, who immediately jams it into the doorjamb and sets about unsticking the door handle.

“Call Fusco,” Shaw orders, as soon as they tumble out of the closet.

“Way ahead of you, Shaw,” Root says, following her out of the apartment and keeping a careful distance between them.

Root keeps her eyes on her phone as they stride down the street towards the car, still waiting where they’d left it.

“Hello, Lionel,” she says, when he finally picks up her call, rerouted to look as though it’s coming from his precinct.

She shares a look with Shaw, as they buckle up and punch in Fusco’s GPS coordinates. They’ve both got some serious tension to begin unloading.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof! talk about a dialogue-heavy chapter.


	4. Genrika Zhirova

“Hello?”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line.

“Hello?” Root repeats, already about to hang up.

“You’re not Shaw,” comes an unexpectedly high-pitched, very young-sounding voice on the other end of the line.

“No,” Root says, baffled.

“Where’s Shaw?” the voice wants to know.

Root mutes the phone to quickly hiss, “Why is there a child calling Shaw on her private line?”

The Machine doesn’t answer, but the voice continues its line of questioning, undeterred. “Who are you?”

Root gives Her another few seconds to supply her with what seems to be increasingly pertinent information, but her earpiece still remains silent.

“Why didn’t Shaw answer her phone? Did something happen to her?”

The questions are never-ending.

“What did you do with her? Is she compromised? Are you tracking this phone call right now? I routed it through another cell tower like Shaw taught me so you wouldn’t be able to find me even if you tried. Is Shaw okay? I want to talk to her. Put her on the phone.”

Root finally unmutes the phone and sighs, “She’s fine. Who is this?”

There’s a resentful silence on the other end.

Root sighs again, opting to believe that Shaw would only give her private number out to someone she trusted. “She’s in the shower. What do you want with her?”

The silence continues, and Root can practically hear the gears turning on the other end of the line.

Root sighs, _again_ , making sure the phone picks it up. “If you’re not going to answer me, maybe I should just hang u—”

“Wait,” the kid says.

Root waits.

“How do I _know_ Shaw’s in the shower?” The tone is unusually suspicious for what appears to be, for all intents and purposes, a pre-teenaged girl’s voice.

“Well, you’ll just have to take my word for it, won’t you?” Root replies. She puts the phone on speaker and starts fiddling with Shaw’s phone, trying to pair it with her own so she can start tracing the call.

“Wait,” the kid says again.

Root waits, again, but this time she’s contemplating hooking Shaw’s phone up to her laptop to see if she can get in from there. Her laptop is over in Shaw’s living room, though, and that’s an awful far distance to walk considering she has no clothes on.

“I know who you are.”

“Yeah?” Root’s feet kick ineffectually at the blankets. It’s warm in Shaw’s bed, and how dangerous could one kid really be?

“You’re Root,” the voice says, sounding smug.

Root gets out of the bed and heads toward her laptop. She is absolutely not accustomed to being the one equipped with less information when dealing with other adults, much less _children_.

She halts in front of her laptop. She’d have to go looking for the cord to hook the phone up, and the more steps that are involved in breaking into Shaw’s phone, the more Root is realizing it might not be the best move to make. Especially once Shaw gets out of the shower and gets a look at what she’s done.

“Alright,” Root says, settling onto the couch. “So who’re you?”

There’s a small giggle at the other end. “So _you’re_ Root…” she says, ignoring Root’s question.

Root rolls her eyes (it’s a bad habit, and probably one that’s started rubbing off from Shaw), and repeats the question. This kid seems to really like asking questions, if not supplying answers, but Root is determined to get through to her.

“I’m Gen,” the girl says, with a flourish in her voice as though Root ought to be impressed.

Root crosses her legs and leans back on the couch. “Yes, and?”

The silence over the phone seems put-out, this time, as if Gen had been expecting an entirely different reaction. “Wait, Shaw’s never told you about me?”

Root yawns.

Of course she knows who Gen is, and suddenly it makes sense as to why some kid is calling Shaw’s phone at 9 a.m. on a Sunday morning. If the Machine hadn’t been the one to helpfully supply her with a summary of Shaw’s brief scuffle with the Russian mob, Shaw had filled in most of the gaps (in her own way) the first time Root had hesitantly fingered the old Soviet medal tucked away in Shaw’s night table drawer.

But the way Shaw had described it, she’d sent Gen off to boarding school and then never heard from the “little brat” again. Nowhere in her reluctantly-told story had she mentioned staying in regular contact with the kid.

Root finds herself grinning a little bit, exceedingly pleased with this new turn of events.

An unmistakeably childish huff comes in, before there’s a sudden, calculating quiet.

Root sits up a little bit, not liking this thoughtful silence at all.

“Hey,” Root says, uneasily. She isn’t really equipped to have conversations with preteens (she has no idea how Shaw, of all people, manages), and begins wracking her brain to figure out how children tick. “You still there?”

“Yeah,” Gen says, but her voice sounds alarmingly content, and Root is struck by how much she’s reminded of Shaw right now. Right before Shaw always manages to do _something_ Root doesn’t like. “Say, Root.”

“What?” she asks warily.

“You’ve done a lot of stuff, right? Like, jobs and things?”

“In a manner of speaking,” she says evasively, biting her lip. Has Shaw told this kid about how she used to be a _contract killer_? She wouldn’t have. Would she?

“But, like, they were more interesting than the stuff Shaw’s done, right?”

“In a manner of speaking,” she says again, this time less reluctantly.

“Cool,” Gen says happily, no doubt hearing the implied “but yes, absolutely” Root’s barely managing to refrain from saying out loud. “Wanna come in for my Career Day at school?”

“What?”

She can hear the shrug over the phone, even if she can’t see it. “Like, no offense to Shaw, but when I asked her, she said she’d only come to talk about being a doctor or a Marine. _Boring_.”

“Boring, huh?” Root repeats, amused now.

“I mean, she’s a _spy_. How awesome would that be, for me to have a _spy_ come in and talk to us on Career Day?”

“Doctors are—”

“Respected, smart, whatever,” Gen says impatiently. “Shaw already said that. Disciplined, hard-working. She said the same things about being a Marine. But those aren’t nearly as interesting as being a _spy_.”

“You know I’m not a spy, right?” Root asks, and she’s immediately horrified at herself, because she shouldn’t be even jokingly entertaining this idea right now.

But, on the other hand, she also _could_ be entertaining this idea…

“I know you’ve done lots of cool things, because Shaw won’t tell me about any of them,” Gen says. “C’mon, Root. Please? I can’t ask Harold, he’s even more boring. And he would insist on coming if he knew.”

“I don’t—I don’t even know you,” Root protests half-heartedly.

“Please,” Gen scoffs. “Most of my classmates know less about their parents than I do about you.”

“Oh, you know things about me, do you?”

“More than _you_ know about me, apparently,” is the snide response. Gen still thinks she has the upper hand when it comes to information, and Root isn’t about to disabuse her of that notion, but she can still feel Gen starting to get a rise out of her.

Root shouldn’t be falling for this. She shouldn’t be feeling rankled by a—

“We’ll see about that,” Root says. She pulls up her encrypted calendar and considers it for a moment. She’s never been one for scheduling or planning things ahead, but…

“Awesome! Okay, so, it’s this Friday, at 2 p.m. Can you come as a super unstoppable hacker who steals money from the rich and gives it to the poor?”

“I have never been that. Not once in my life,” Root says, archly (although it might be a tiny fib). Has Shaw been describing her as some sort of a modern-day Robin Hood? Robin Hood had a bunch of oafs following him around. She’s more sophisticated than that. “How about a street magician?”

“You’ve been a street magician?” Gen’s voice is utterly disbelieving. “Really? Why? For how long? Did you make a lot of money doing it?”

“I have,” Root says. Despite herself, she’s starting to enjoy this conversation, and she’s starting to see why Shaw bothers to let this kid hang around. “Because I needed to, for about a week, and not really, but money is never really a huge concern for me.”

Gen contemplates this for barely half a second before rejecting the idea. “Not cool enough. What else do you have?”

“A… French nanny?” 

The silence on the other end speaks volumes. _Are you kidding me?_

“What about a birthday party entertainer?”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means I wore costumes and entertained small children like you.”

“I’m not a _child_ ,” Gen says. Root grins. It’s almost as easy making Gen sound sulky as it is to do the same to Shaw.

Gen mulls it over for a second. “What kind of costumes? Like Mata Hari?”

Root laughs. “Not exactly.”

There’s a loud sigh. “That won’t work. You probably can’t stand kids. Nobody would buy it.”

Root shrugs one shoulder, even though Gen can’t see it. It’s not untrue, but before she can stop herself, she replies, “I’ll have you know, I’m great with kids. They love me.”

“Probably because you let them get away with anything they want while you steal their parents’ jewellery or something.”

Really, how exactly has Shaw been describing her to this girl? As some sort of a common thief? Root thinks back to the intrigued “oh, so _you’re_ Root” from the beginning of the conversation, and frowns.

An awkward silence stretches for a little while, and Root is surprised to find herself thinking hard about an impressive role she could slip into to make Gen seem cool at her school.

“What about an actress?”

“Hmm,” Gen says, the sound crackling out over the speakerphone. “Hmm. Maybe. Yes. Okay. Yes. But since parents are supposed to give a demo of a day in the life of whatever, I’ll write your script for you.”

“What?”

Root doesn’t know what to address first. The idea that she’s _actually_ going in and talking to a bunch of preteens about becoming an actress? The idea that she’ll be playing the role of Gen’s _parent_? The idea of letting Gen dictate what she should say or do?

“Thanks, Root,” Gen says quickly, as though she can tell Root’s about to change her mind. “You’re pretty cool, after all.”

Gen hangs up, and Root stares at the phone.

This… is going to be trouble.

Root grins.

“Hey,” Shaw says, stepping out of the bathroom, towelling her hair dry. “Were you talking to someone?”

Root looks over her shoulder, dropping the phone casually and turning her smile to Shaw. “Just the Machine.”

“I thought I heard two voices,” Shaw says, suspicious.

Root stands, and eyes Shaw, aware of Shaw doing the same to her. She crosses her arms under her breasts, watching Shaw’s gaze track her every move.

“Hmm,” she all but purrs, deliberately making her way around the couch. “There’s only room for one of us to be hearing voices, Sameen.”

Standing in front of Shaw, she runs one finger along the side of Shaw’s neck, enjoying the way Shaw tilts her head instinctively to give her better access.

“And I don’t think I’m giving up my spot,” she says quietly, waiting for the competitive spark in Shaw’s eye to flare. “Not even for you.”

Sure enough, Shaw grabs her finger before it can wander too far down.

“You sure about that?” Shaw grins, in promise. “You know how persuasive I can be.”

Root leans down a little, bringing their faces close together.

“Can’t say I do,” she says airily, fully aware of what’s about to happen next.

With one hand bringing Root’s finger to brush against her mouth, and the other firmly pressing into the small of Root’s back, Shaw quirks an eyebrow up at Root. Her tongue flicks out, and Root tries hard not to let the finger in Shaw’s grasp twitch in response.

Leaning down and replacing her finger with her mouth, she lets Shaw’s tongue dance along her lips as she carefully angles toward Shaw’s cell phone.

As they walk backward to the bedroom, Root slips the hand holding the phone behind her back, dropping it onto the end table she’d picked it up from as they pass. Shaw bites down on her lip, noting Root’s distraction without yet being aware of the cause, and Root freezes before quickly settling herself onto the bed.

Propped up on her side across the bed, hair cascading down over one shoulder, Root lifts the other shoulder and one eyebrow, looking up at Shaw.

There’s an unchecked grin on Shaw’s face, taking the sight of Root in.

“Well?” Root asks, tilting her head to the side. “Are you coming or not?”

Shaw’s expression contains all the innuendo in the world as a response, as she clambers onto the bed to join Root.

“Hmm,” Root says, a little knowingly, letting Shaw pull her on top.

Shaw starts to say something – probably the other end of the smartass comment she was about to make in response to Root’s unintended double entendre – but Root cuts her off by pulling at Shaw’s bottom lip with her teeth, so it comes out more as a _mmmfh_.

“Mmfh,” Root repeats, mockingly. She quickly kisses Shaw again before Shaw can try to say anything else.

“Mmmppff?” Root imitates a little later, pausing her ministrations along Shaw’s neck with her hand over Shaw’s mouth, which is still trying to say snarky things at her.

“Ppbbmh,” she repeats, grinning down at Shaw, as Shaw rolls her eyes and falls silent.

Shaw bites lightly at her palm, before licking. Root refuses to lift her hand, and brings her face down close to Shaw’s, even as Shaw turns her head away grouchily. “What was that, Sameen? I couldn’t hear you.”

“Opbh, shhbh hhpp,” Shaw grumbles.

“Hmm?” Root nips at Shaw’s earlobe.

Wrenching Root’s wrist away from her mouth with one hand and using the other to wrap her arm around Root’s waist and flip them over, Shaw presses her thigh into Root and sighs, “Just shut up, Root.”

“Make me,” Root answers cheekily.

Shaking her head and casting her eyes to the ceiling, Shaw leans down and does exactly that.

 

* * *

 

 

“You look different from your picture,” Gen observes.

“So do you,” Root says, not bothering to look up from the script Gen had shoved into her hand without so much as a “hello” after she'd walked through the door. “You look smaller in person.”

Gen crosses her arms and slowly starts bouncing up on her tiptoes, subtly. She scowls when Root slides an amused glance over at her, and rocks back onto her heels. “Yeah, well, you look older.”

Root grins – this kid is _just_ a miniature Shaw, and once she’d realized that two days ago after having trawled through Gen’s entirely mundane but very illuminating social media profiles, the nervous butterflies that had taken up residence in her stomach after the Sunday phone call had all but dissipated.

Her attention returns to the script in her hands after Gen mutters something and walks away, looking down at her phone.

It's suspiciously well written, actually, for a middle schooler, but, the genre… is surprising, to say the least. Certainly not the action-packed rollin’-and-tumblin’ (fake)-guns-a-firin’ spy scene Root had been steeling herself for. Definitely not the kind of scene she can easily picture Gen writing.

She takes a rueful look down at her flat boots, which she'd carefully chosen after a moment of contemplation as she was getting dressed this morning. But because of the surreptitious sidelong looks she's been getting from some of the fathers at the other end of the room, though, she's starting to wish she'd worn her spike-heeled boots instead.

One of the fathers in question – Root takes a quick glance down and, yup, no ring, but there's a pale untanned circle where it had probably just been a few minutes ago – is starting to make his way over. She looks around, but there's no sign of Gen anywhere.

“Well, you've got the look of someone who clearly hasn't been to one of these shindigs before.”

“And how’s that?” Root asks, with a smile on her face he clearly takes to be friendly, but ought to have taken to be a warning sign.

“You look far too fresh-faced,” he says, then gestures towards the kids all huddled up around their teacher at the other end of the room. “You could pass as one of their siblings, not a parent. Which one’s yours?”

“Gen,” Root says, choosing not to address anything else he'd said. “You?”

“That little guy over there,” he points. “He's a pretty big fan of Gen.”

“Really?” He's got Root’s attention now. “In what way?”

“In all the ways,” he says, leaning a little closer to Root. She smiles at him, waiting for him to continue. “Quite a kid you have there. Smart, athletic, nice.”

“Nice?” Root repeats, disbelievingly.

“Oh, sure,” he says. “All the kids know that if they need anything, Gen would be the one to know how to help them out. Brilliant girl. She's definitely saved my boy’s bacon a few times.”

“That's… that's my Gen,” Root says, at his expectant look. “I just… love her to bits.”

He shakes his head, somehow managing to lean closer again. “She must take after her… after you.”

The next thing out of his mouth is undoubtedly going to be a question as to how _exactly_ Root is related to Gen, so she hurriedly flips her hair (catching him in the face, which she doesn't bother hiding her smirk at) and says, “Speaking of the little… angel, I'd better go find her.”

“Oh, uh, sure, it was nice meeting you. Uh, I'm—”

She doesn't care who he is, and steps out into the hallway, looking around. She spots curly hair peeking out from around the corner, and heads over to hear Gen hissing, “Well, it starts in fifteen minutes, so you had better get here soon!”

Root checks her watch. “It starts in five, doesn't it?”

Gen doesn't even jump as she turns around and pockets her phone, calmly. Root has a sneaking suspicion that Gen had watched her coming up behind her from the reflection of a classroom window bouncing off a trophy in the case adjacent to her.

“Oh, there you are,” she says. “Well? Did you memorize it?”

Root waves a hand lackadaisically. “I can just do a dramatic reading. It's plenty dramatic enough, anyway.”

Gen folds her arms and stares up at her. “Or you could memorize it.”

Root folds her arms and stares back, lifting an eyebrow. “Or I could leave you in the lurch and walk out of here.”

“You don't want to do that,” Gen says, smugly. “Trust me.”

Idly, Root wonders how she got here, standing in a middle school hallway locked in a staring competition, hand on her hip and idly fidgeting with the taser she's strapped under her belt, aware of the fact that it might be slight overkill (even for her) to tase a preteen twerp just to make a point.

And as she eyes the twerp in question, with an obstinate glint in her eye that rings all too familiar, Root sighs and smiles.

“Alright, let me just… go take a few pictures of this script. It… helps me remember, if I digitize it.”

Suspicious, Gen lets her hands fall to her sides. It’s clear to Root that Gen, as “nice” and well-liked as she may seem to her classmates, isn't accustomed to easily getting her way without wondering where the catch is.

Root begins getting pictures of the script onto her phone, smiling down at Gen as the curious stare up at her continues.

“You're on in less than two minutes…” Gen says doubtfully. The expression on her face is an interesting mix of eagerness (no doubt because she'd expected it to be impossible for Root to memorize the entire monologue) and trepidation (which appears to be steadily growing as the self-assured, self-satisfied grin on Root’s own face grows).

“I'll be there,” Root says lightly.

Gen looks caught between a smirk and a scowl, but after a moment she blinks and an artfully gracious smile makes its way onto her face. She skips back to the classroom, by all rights appearing to be a normal schoolgirl. “Cool. Thanks, Root!”

“No worries, sweetie,” Root calls after her, sugary sweet.

She finishes up with the scans of the script and tilts her head.

“Wanna hel—” she begins asking, but before she can even start the first stage of her carefully crafted, eight-step process for wheedling things out of the Machine, facts about the importance of voice projection are already being chattered into her earpiece.

Root stands there for a moment, blinking, before a slightly concerned smile makes its way onto her face. She doesn't dwell on it for long (her call time is coming up) but now it’s her turn to be a bit concerned, at this generous favour being offered to her.

 _Maybe the Machine also has a soft spot for this girl_ , she muses to herself. Standing just outside the door, Root peers inside to see a startlingly well-adjusted, clearly popular facsimile of the child she'd been bickering with moments before, in the centre of a small group of others.

And although there's a patient smile on Gen’s face as she converses with her peers, there's also a clever, calculating way about her that Root would have missed if she hadn't been specifically looking for it.

 _Interesting kid_.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Shaw takes a brief glance at her watch, wondering why there are no other parents or guardians about in the hallways. _Five minutes early_ , her watch says.

With a satisfied little nod to herself, Shaw picks up her pace. She'd just given Gen a long lecture on the importance of being punctual a few weeks ago, and even though her watch is telling her she's on time, the lack of annoying socialite stepmothers and balding CEO fathers around is giving Shaw an irritating, sinking feeling, as if she's already running late.

Her phone rings.

“Hello? Gen?”

There're no answer.

“Gen,” Shaw repeats into her phone.

She's drawing closer to the classroom, now, so she's about on the verge of hanging up the phone. Even if Finch _is_ footing the bill (“C’mon, Finch, it's like our version of a company expense, especially if you're always gonna be calling me this early on Saturday mornings,” she'd said), the hassle of keeping a useless phone to her ear just to waste her minutes is pointless.

There’s a soft clattering noise on the other end of the line, and then a muted curse she immediately identifies to be Gen.

“Gen?” Shaw says louder this time, alarmed. In the past few months alone, she's had to finagle Gen out of two dicey situations, each one increasingly shadier than the last. (“I was there with a friend!” the little punk had said after a run-in with a fraudulent doctor, and “But _I_ wasn't the one buying them, they were for a friend!” after she'd uncovered a counterfeit trading card ring.)

And that wasn't even counting what the nosey little brat had gotten up to, the first time they'd met, trying to run those drug dealers out of her apartment building.

But then a small clicking noise comes in, and an altogether different voice begins speaking altogether.

“I'm in love with you,” she hears, from a voice that sounds ridiculously like Root’s.

Shaw stops dead in her tracks. She thinks she also hears a slight choking sound, but that might have come from her.

The tone is the same as it might have been if Root were the one on the other end. The weird infuriating _lilt_ to her voice, is the same. It's… it sounds like Root, but—

“…and I'm not in the habit of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things.”

It still sounds like Root but what the _fuck_ is—

“I'm in love with you,” the person she's 99% sure is Root says again, over the very undignified squawking noises Shaw is aware are coming out of her right now but has absolutely no idea how to stop.

“…and I know that love is just a shout into the wind, and that oblivion is inevitable,” and Shaw has finally managed to stop standing stock-still in the middle of a _school hallway_ , but her absolute confusion has not lessened the slightest.

Is this Root? It has to be? There's no denying that raw tone of voice she gets whenever she's on the verge of being too emotional for Shaw to really know how to respond to?

“…and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labour has been turned to dust,” Root says, over the increasingly angry demands Shaw is making into the phone for Root to _stop this weirdass thing you're doing right now, Root, what the hell are you doing?_

But that's right, Root always manages to pay attention to Shaw’s reactions, and by now she'd normally (assuming anything right now could be analyzed by _normal_ metrics) have cut herself off. Especially since it's audibly putting Shaw in a potentially fatal situation as she forgets how to breathe, and if this _was_ Root she'd have stopped and asked if she was okay by now. Wouldn't she?

“…and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have,” and the sudden, wild thought that maybe what's happening is that Root just isn't talking to _her_ and she's overhearing a conversation Root is having with someone _else_.

Because in what world would Root _ever_ use flowery ass language like this with her? Not to mention… all these words at all? In general?

“…and I am in love with you,” Root finishes, at the other end, and Shaw is startled to find herself clenching her jaw so tight that it takes a moment for it to unstick. Who the _hell_ would Root be saying all these words t—

The sound of applause is brief, just the slightest snippet, before it gets cut off and another little cursing noise is muffled through the phone, but Shaw's attention is drawn to the very loud, very simultaneous applause trickling out from the classroom Gen had directed her to for the Career Day presentations.

“Oh, Gen,” Shaw says, once she's managed to get her bearings and figure out exactly what it is that the little soon-to-be corpse has done.

“Oh, Genrika Zhirova,” Shaw says, feeling the corner of her mouth lifting up in a grim baring of her teeth. She stalks up to the door, taking a moment to look through to determine the little brat’s location, as well as to evaluate the entry- and exit-options.

Peering in, she doesn't know exactly why she feels a little surprised to actually see Root in there next to Gen, the two of them wearing identical stupid grins as Gen’s classmates and their parents gather round and ask questions, clearly impressed by the show Root had just put on.

Maybe she'd assumed Gen had somehow… digitally manipulated a voice to sound like Root’s. Somehow.

Gen is becoming scarily good at recordings and digital communications, now, not that Shaw’s stray advice here and there is exactly _helping_ the situation. Shaw makes a mental note to refuse to teach Gen anything spy-related at all for at least three months.

Or maybe she's just startled to see Root actually standing next to Gen, the two most colossally harebrained idiots in her life, teamed up and colluding and conspiring and being incredibly—incredibly, ah—

Dorky. Root is being an absolute dork.

Shaw watches Root, looking down at Gen and nodding and clearly following Gen’s cues in acting out ridiculous, exaggerated motions, like—skiing? Swimming? What is that, is Root supposed to be knitting, now? And the entire time, the slightly amused, somewhat eager look on Root’s face remains the same.

She's trying to _impress_ Gen.

Shaw snorts, a little, but she's annoyed to register that it's coming out more like a… like a sigh.

It ought to have been her first instinct to be concerned that Gen has somehow managed to fall into Root’s clutches, especially considering stories Root has _told_ her about her various escapades with poor unsuspecting children at the behest of the Machine, but…

She watches Root gesticulate wildly with her hands, either trying to demonstrate fly fishing, or… riding a roller coaster, while Gen looks on with a small smirk on her face.

Maybe she ought to be feeling concerned that Root’s the one who's fallen into Gen’s clutches, instead.

She shakes her head. Texting Gen a quick offer to meet her at the arcade instead, she steps back from the door and turns around.

 

* * *

 

 

Shaw stares at the screen. “This is bullsh—”

She's cut off by a loud whoop, and her stare shifts down to the jumping, elated hooligan dancing around on the motorcycle beside her. Her trigger finger twitches.

“Best three out of five, Shaw?” Gen asks, sweetly, finishing up her celebratory song and dance after having beaten Shaw _again_ at this stupid, broken, glitchy arcade game.

“Let's go, I need to take you back to your boarding school,” Shaw mutters, jumping off the (unreasonably tall, incredibly fake, no-good toy) motorcycle, kicking at it for good measure, and then turning toward the exit. “If it had been a game with guns, I would have—”

“They have a few of those here,” Gen chirps. “They're all pretty good, but you don't get enough tickets out of any of them if you're playing solo.”

Shaw slows, squinting down at her. “How often did you say you come here, again?”

“Not… _often_ ,” Gen says cagily, averting her gaze.

“You know, for someone who keeps insisting she wants to be a spy, you really need to work on your lying,” Shaw comments, gently nudging Gen to guide her towards one of these shooting games.

“I thought you didn't want me to lie to you,” Gen says, obediently leading her to a corner of the arcade, where Shaw is excited to see large guns and larger screens.

Shaw chances a smile down at Gen, banking on the same childlike innocence that had prompted the automatic response to also keep her distracted at the sight of all the nearby games.

Sometimes Shaw forgets Gen’s still a kid. Probably because she's been shooting up like a gangly tree and getting nearly too tall for Shaw to feel altogether comfortable walking next to for fear of being taken as similarly aged friends.

“Do you want to play Wrath of the Jungle, Streetside Shootout, or Target Mania?” Gen asks, pointing out each game and looking up at Shaw.

Shaw quickly looks away before Gen can catch the smile on her face (Gen would probably say something bratty and gross and affectionate in response, and Shaw doesn't need that), and frowns. “They all sound dumb.”

Undaunted, Gen bounces on her toes a little. “C’mon, Shaw, pick one! Any one.”

“Fine,” Shaw says. She walks over to the nearest one and picks up the fake gun. “Target Mania. This sounds like pure skill.”

“Cool,” Gen says happily, skipping over and sliding a few tokens in. “You’re gonna like this one, Shaw.”

“Yeah, because I'm gonna beat you,” Shaw says, tongue poking out in concentration when the game begins.

And two minutes later, she's staring disbelief at the screen again. This time her trigger finger isn't just twitching, it's full on squeezing away while Gen does her stupid little celebration dance. The little brat is _very,_ very lucky that these guns are entirely useless and improperly weighted and altogether a gigantic waste of space.

“ _And_ I didn't even any sleep last night,” Gen is chattering away.

“Yeah, why’s that?” Shaw asks grumpily. “Too busy setting up your recorder for that little stunt you pulled today?”

She's met with an incredibly guilty, but also excessively self-satisfied look on Gen’s face. “Too busy trying to picture the look on your face afterwards, maybe.”

Shaw scowls.

“How'd I know I'd find you two here?”

Shaw drops the gun. It swings from the attached cord, clattering rhythmically against the holding stand.

“Oh, hi, Root! Took you long enough to get here. Hey, guess what? I've beaten Shaw at every single game.”

“Also unsurprising,” Root smiles. “Does that include the motorcycle one I recommended?”

“I said _every_ game, didn't I?”

Shaw blinks at Root a few times, still smiling at her, before quickly turning back around and bending to put the gun back in its holder. A brief flashback comes unbidden to her, of the sound of Root saying “I'm in love with you,” and the gun slips out of her grip for a moment before she catches it and hastily slides it back in.

She looks up to find them both looking at her, waiting for her to say something.

“Uh,” she says, before arranging her features into a suitably grumpy expression.

Mumbling something that sounds vaguely threatening and disgruntled, she spins around again and finds herself staring at the token machine. She slides in another few dollars, just to keep herself occupied, because she can _feel_ Root’s curious stare burning through the back of her head.

“Was that you on the leaderboard for that shooting game?” Root is asking Gen, but she's still _looking_ at Shaw, and Shaw starts walking around the arcade, attention focused firmly on Gen.

Gen shrugs. “I bet you guys have a real shooting range to practice on. This one’s mine.”

Root and Shaw exchange an equal parts amused and alarmed look, and Shaw takes a deep breath through her nose.

“So, Root,” she says casually. “See any games around here you wanna get beaten at?”

That's it. Normal. It's… normal.

“You sure you don't want to take a break? All that losing must be hard work, Shaw,” Root replies, not missing a beat. She still looks mildly perplexed, as though there's something about the way Shaw’s staring at her that she can't quite put her finger on.

“Not as hard as reading a speech out of a children’s book, I bet,” Shaw replies. She ignores a nervous _eep_ from Gen, who's looking anxiously at Root, clearly not wanting Root to know she'd been played like a pawn in Gen’s little prank.

“How did y—” Root begins.

“Ooh, you'll like that one, too, Shaw,” Gen says quickly, pointing at a game called Hacker’s Paradise, with a nervous glance up at Root, but Root just smiles and cocks her head at the girl, apparently still unaware of anything amiss. Gen flashes a quick smile back.

 _Interesting_ , Shaw notes.

Then she frowns a little. What's Root trying to do, imprint herself on a young and impressionable child? What's her endgame, here? Why are they bonding?

Shaw looks down at Gen suspiciously, too.

“She'll like this one, eh?” Root asks, looking thoughtfully at the very nerdy game. She lifts one eyebrow, then grins insolently at Shaw, voice dropping low. “We can play what _ever_ you'd like, Sameen.”

Shaw coughs, with a quick glare cutting from Root down to Gen and then back again. Root shrugs in response.

“It's a two-person game, though,” Gen informs them after a pause, looking between the two guilty-looking adults, beady little eyes not missing a single thing. “I'm going to go practice my agility and stuff at that jump rope game over there.”

Shaw's already sliding her tokens in, determined this time to _beat the shit_ out of one of these stupid out-dated tacky old games. “Yeah, okay. Come find us when you get bored, we’re your ride home.”

“I'm not going back to that hellhole!” Gen yells over her shoulder.

Shaw ignores her. She says that every time.

Root doesn't say anything, just watches them with a thoughtful _look_ on her face that Shaw doesn't know how to interpret. She can't tell if Root is watching her, or Gen, or the two of them together, or…

Shaw lets the silence drag on for a while. It's not like Root to be this quiet – unless it is, and the silence is just amplified, for some reason, and there's no reason Shaw ought to be itching to break it.

After another few seconds, during which the stupid game is _still_ asking for more tokens – she clears her throat and turns, not yet sure what she's about to say, but—

“Gah,” Shaw says, nearly stepping right into Gen, who had doubled back silently and is now looking curiously between the two of them.

“Something else you needed, Gen?” Root asks, leaning against a stool, drawing closer to Shaw, so her scent gently washes over and makes Shaw feel like she's about to do something very ill-advised for a public children’s venue.

“Do you two not talk to each other?” Gen asks.

They both look at each other, blinking. “What?”

Gen looks at them. “You two haven't said more than, like, ten words to each other, this entire time.”

Shaw glares at Root, as if it's her fault, but before she can say anything, an extremely mischievous grin slides onto Gen’s face.

Hands behind her back, in a deceivingly innocent gesture, Gen swings her shoulders from side to side and smiles up at Shaw. “Isn’t there something on your mind that you'd like to say to Root?”

Shaw clenches her teeth, steadfastly ignoring the growing, curious smile on Root’s face. “Alright, kid, if you're bored here, we can just go—”

“I'm going! I'm going!” Gen says, dancing just out of Shaw’s reach, heading back towards the jump rope game at the front. “I'll leave you two alone to… _talk_.”

Root smirks, watching Gen toss a smug smile over her shoulder. “Quite a character, isn't she?”

Shaw whacks at the game machine, and the sound of tokens finally falling through and getting eaten by the machine whirrs out. She rolls her eyes at Root. “Little brat.”

“Does she know about…?”

Shaw looks sideways at Root, at the finger being rotated to signify the word _us_ , and swallows harshly _._ “Do you want to talk about Gen, or do you want to play this dumb nerd game?”

Root looks down and grins. “Alright, Sameen.”

A minute later, sounds that are suspiciously similar to _cackles_ are escaping Shaw, especially each time she glances to her right and sees Root’s increasingly petulant face screwed up in concentration.

“Shouldn't a nerd game like this be your forte, Root?” Shaw’s fingers are furiously tapping away at the control pad. She’s winning. She's unstoppable.

Root swears under her breath as she loses another life, then glares at Shaw out of the corner of her eye. “This… is bullsh—”

Shaw is literally about a pixel away from retrieving the master code in the middle of the maze, whereas Root’s little character is _still_ tangled up in the long coffee line, so she takes her hands off the controls and instead leans over to Root, who's looking about as grumpy as Shaw feels most days.

What is it Root would do in a moment like this? Lean over Shaw, hair brushing against shoulder, breath tickling along neck, smugness oozing out every pore?

Shaw considers it for a second, just so Root can see how absolutely annoying it is (although Shaw is actually certain she _knows_ , because otherwise why would she do it at all?), but her attention is taken by the little jut to Root’s jaw.

The bottom lip poking out, a pout if she'd ever seen one, is unexpectedly mesmerizing. Shaw can't bring herself to take her eyes away from the fierce slant to Root’s brow, or the redness of Root’s lips as she makes a small moue of irritation when she loses another life, and the game.

Shaw brings her lips next to Root’s ear, breathing quietly. “Better luck next time, huh?”

Gaze flicking over, Root is silent for a moment, before she abruptly turns her head, bringing their lips less than a centimetre apart. And then: “Round two?”

Their next game doesn't turn out much better for Root, but Shaw is really enjoying this game. Without it, she wouldn't have gotten to see that little line between Root’s eyebrows, as she crossly asks, “Are you cheating, Shaw?”

And after she refuses to dignify that with an answer, she also wouldn't have gotten to hear Root’s plaintive follow up, “You wouldn't do that to me, would you?”

Shaw grins. “I don't need to cheat to kick your ass at thi—”

“I wasn't talking to _you_ , genius,” Root says tersely, not even looking over at Shaw, too focused on the game even as she loses another life.

“Well?” Root demands, after presumably not getting an answer from the Machine.

Shaw grins. This might be one of the only times Root has ever pulled _that_ line on her, and it's… endearing. A little. Maybe.

Root loses the game again, and pushes against the game stand, looking down. A moment later, she looks up and over at Shaw, slightly apologetic, as though she doesn't know what Shaw’s reaction is going to be. “I didn't mean to snap.”

Shaw shrugs. “Is it wrong that I liked it?”

Root's eyes widen, and she drops her arms from the game stand to step into Shaw’s space.

Shaw looks up at her, smiling outright. “What can I say? Winning puts me in a good mood.”

“I've noticed,” Root murmurs. She dips her head and steals a kiss from Shaw, and Shaw lets her.

They break apart after a _very_ nice moment, sharing identical confused looks.

“Has it been a bit quiet?”

“Mm,” Root agrees. “Far too quiet.”

They look around. There's no sign of Gen.

Shaw pulls out her phone.

“Is that a… Are you tracking her?” Root asks, looking over Shaw’s shoulder.

“Right,” Root says, after a moment, after Shaw just looks at her. “Good call.”

Shaw puts the phone to her ear, launching into a lecture as soon as Gen picks up. “Hey, you little punk. Where the hell did you run off to? Didn't I tell you to—”

Abruptly, Shaw cuts off, then hangs up the phone.

They start walking out of the arcade, and Root waits patiently for Shaw to say something.

“She said she wanted to give us… alone time,” Shaw eventually mutters.

Root’s step falters for a brief moment, but she doesn't say anything. Just smiles down at Shaw in that annoying way she always does.

Shaw fights a smile trying to peek back out up at her, and hides it with one of her trademark eye-rolls. “She's sitting at a bus stop, but she doesn't have any bus tokens.”

“Hmm,” Root says, before her expression turns sly. “How long you wanna make her wait before we pick her up?”

“Anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.” Shaw looks up at Root again, before making a beeline toward the hot dog stand across the street. “I'm flexible.”

Again, Root opts not to say anything, but Shaw can feel what must be an identical grin spreading across her face, as they fall into step with one another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy wordcount, batman!
> 
> my bad. i just kept wanting to add all the hijinks gen could get up to with them. oh well let's take it as my 7,273-word contribution to #operationcosy
> 
> ALSO yes that scene gen had root read was a result of her directly lifting a quote from "the fault in our stars," because gen has _totally_ got a bunch of YA romance novels hidden under the "inside camp x" and "spying on democracy" books on her nightstand.


	5. Bear De Hond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: alcohol @ a picnic date

Shaw tucks her chin in and settles her elbows more firmly on each of her knees.

Bear whines a little, but keeps his head on his paws, looking up at her sombrely.

It’s been nearly ten entire minutes, and Shaw’s still sitting cross-legged on the floor across from the dog, either having the world’s most drawn-out, dishonest staring contest, or continuing with the silent (and futile, in Root’s opinion) interrogation.

“You could try asking him what’s wrong,” Root suggests, taking a bite out of her apple. She crosses her legs and swivels whimsically in Shaw’s desk chair from side to side, watching the stalemate between small assassin and big dog stretch out.

Not bothering to shift her serious stare up and over to Root, Shaw says (quietly, and out of the side of her mouth), “I’m not going to do that. We’re doing this thing where we’re unconditionally open and honest with each other.”

Root takes another bite of her apple, in place of suggesting that Shaw ought to maybe try that with a human, if she’s going to be trying open communication for the first time in her life.

And try it with a human named Root, maybe.

Eventually Bear looks away from Shaw, and— now he’s staring sorrowfully up at Root.

“Sameen,” Root whispers, hiding her mouth behind her apple. In case Bear can read lips, or something. She wouldn’t put it past him. “Sameen, he’s looking at me.”

“I can see that,” Shaw whispers back, somehow managing to convey a world of irritation in a deceptively quiet tone. “What did you do?”

Root gets up out of the chair, and heads over to the kitchen. She’s uncomfortably aware of Bear’s head lifting up, as his eyes follow her path out of the living room.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she calls as she digs through the fridge, but truth be told, she’s starting to get bored of the very long, very silent conversation Shaw seems to be trying to have with the dog.

Weren’t they supposed to have left on his daily walk a long time ago? There were a few things Root had been meaning to, ah, investigate, while Shaw was out of the apartment.

But Bear had apparently decided something was amiss and refused to leave.

That was nearly twenty minutes ago.

At first Root had been amused, watching Shaw pull out one chew toy after another, trying to figure out what it was Bear seemed to want, but now Root’s starting to wonder if the dog is just being a dog and doing stubborn dog things.

While he’s a good, useful dog, and they get along passably well for two creatures who usually only see each other on a professional basis, Root doesn’t quite yet have a firm handle on his personality the way the others do.

Humans, she can read. Dogs? Not quite so much. Nor is she usually very inclined to want to do so.

“Come on,” she hears Shaw murmuring to Bear, now that she’s left the room. “What is it, buddy? Hmm? Did the nasty lady do something to you?”

“I’m only deaf in one ear, Shaw, but I can still hear you,” Root says, leaning around the support beam and shooting a stern look at the two of them.

“You can tell me,” Shaw says, ignoring Root. “Don’t worry about her, huh? C’mon—”

Bear’s head pops up again, deftly dodging Shaw’s outstretched hand. This time he gets up and follows Root into the kitchen, effectively dismissing Shaw.

“Wh—”

“Sameen,” Root says, after a moment. “He’s pushing me.”

There’s a sullen silence practically oozing out of the living room. Root can just picture the look on Shaw’s face right now.

She sighs and puts the sandwich materials she’d been rummaging for on the counter, and bends down to catch Bear’s head with both hands. “Alright, Bear. What’s up?”

Bear shakes her off, gently, and nudges at her again with his nose.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Root says sternly. “Not until you stop making her think I stole you from her.”

The sound that comes from Bear in response sounds suspiciously like a sigh.

He trots out of the kitchen and ignores Shaw and her muffled _tsk_ of indignation, turning instead to pad into the bedroom.

Root shakes her head, smiling a little. Maybe she should start spending more time with the dog, after all. She’s been looking to update her arsenal of tricks, and it looks like Bear might be able to teach her a thing or two about being a lovable annoyance.

“Alright, Root,” Shaw says, entering the kitchen, brandishing Bear’s leash at her in a vaguely threatening manner. “What did you do?”

“Not a thing, Sam,” Root says, holding her hands up in a gesture of innocence, but as she watches Shaw draw closer, still with the leash threading through both hands, she can’t help the quirk in her brow.

“Why don’t I believe you?”

Root shrugs, and holds a tomato slice up to Shaw’s mouth.

Annoyed, Shaw’s eyes dart between the hand in front of her mouth and the knowing smirk on Root’s face. It’s clear that yes, Shaw does want to eat that tomato, but no, she is not going to be eating out of the palm of Root’s hand today.

Not yet, anyway, Root thinks.

Finally plucking the tomato out of Root’s hand and popping it into her mouth herself, Shaw jabs her finger at Root’s face. “What did you do? Why doesn’t he want to take his walk?”

Root shrugs again. This time she holds up a large piece of lettuce.

Again, Shaw snatches it out from Root’s fingers and pops it into her mouth. Crunching down on the (really, very large) piece of lettuce, Shaw says, “Mmfgh. Don’t think you can distract me. If you did somethi—”

Root leans to the side slightly at the sound of Bear’s paws tapping lightly on the floor back towards them, and peers around Shaw’s head.

“Ah,” she says. She stares down at the dog for half a second in consternation, before quickly evaluating her sandwich supplies, hoping Shaw doesn’t turn around to look at him herself.

“Cheese?” she offers Shaw, with a vague smile. She waves it in front of Shaw’s face, pulling back just slightly so Shaw has to draw closer.

Shaw’s eyes narrow dangerously.

Root looks down at the counter again, looking for something else to occupy Shaw’s focus.

She’s only trying to delay the inevitable, here. And who knows? Maybe Bear will decide he likes her and will just get up and trot away on his own.

Maybe he’ll decide _not_ to give Shaw a reason to break out the brand new set of throwing knives that Root knows she’s got sitting under her bed right now. But then, Root's really much better at predicting what humans will do, rather than dogs.

“Or bacon, I have bacon here. Would you like some ba—”

It’s too late. Shaw has already turned around and seen Bear, sitting there, wagging his tail contentedly. She’s already gotten a glimpse at what he’s holding in his mouth.

“Root,” she says quietly. The tone sends a faint tingle up Root’s spine.

“Isn’t that sweet of him,” Root laughs, only a tad nervously, and highly unimpressed with her own immediate physical response to the smooth, low dip in Shaw’s tone of voice.

Without taking her eyes off the back of Shaw’s head, she begins groping blindly along the countertop for something she can use in self-defense. Like a knife, or a ladle, or even a coaster—

“Root,” Shaw repeats. Root tries not to smile outright in exasperation at the slight shiver she gets, hearing her name being crisply bitten out like that.

“That’s so thoughtful of him. What a good dog. He must get that from y—”

“ _Root_. Why the _hell_ did the dog bring us a _picnic basket_?”

“I have no idea,” Root says. She pouts a little, because she knows Shaw won’t believe her. “I really didn’t teach him to do that. When did you get a picnic basket, anyway?”

Shaw bends down a bit and addresses Bear. “Did she put you up to this?”

Bear cocks his head, before dropping the basket on Shaw’s feet. He nudges it toward her and looks between the two of them, panting a little.

Root could _swear_ the stupid dog has a stupid smile on his stupid dog face.

Exhaling slowly, Shaw makes to step around him and exit the kitchen.

Instantly, Bear’s standing up again, blocking Shaw’s way.

Root had found a soap dish a little while ago, when Shaw was still saying her name all low and quiet as if in a promise, and she’d already come up with two creative ways she could use it for self-defence. She lets it slip out of her hands, now, and back onto the counter as she starts laughing.

She can’t help it.

The image in front of her, with Shaw, staring down in dismay at her beloved canine friend, looking utterly betrayed? And with the dog sitting there on the ground, not budging, apparently insistent that she take the picnic basket?

Root is suddenly very appreciative of the dog. They really ought to get to know each other better.

She pauses her giggling long enough to add all the sandwich fixings to the basket, then reach for a bottle of wine. “I guess we’re going on a picnic, Sameen.”

Root gets a glimpse of the dark, vaguely ominous expression on Shaw’s face.

She reaches for another bottle of wine.

Shaw grabs the basket before Root gets the chance to add the bottles in, and huffs a little when Bear magnanimously allows her to walk out of the kitchen with the basket in her arms.

“Traitor,” Root hears being hissed, as they follow Shaw towards the door.

“Good boy,” Root says happily, cradling both bottles of wine in one arm so she can pat the dog’s head.

Bear gives a little woof in response.

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you ever think about hell?”

Root purses her lips, careful not to smile. She tries to estimate how much more intoxicated a small person the same size as Shaw would be compared to her, if they’re both drinking equal sized bottles of wine.

“Hey,” Shaw says, poking her in the side. “Do you think about that stuff? Heaven, hell?”

Squirming a little (Shaw had aimed for a particularly sensitive spot right under her ribcage), Root tries to figure out where this topic of conversation could be coming from.

The park they’re in is beautifully green, unlike the rest of the city, and the happy sounds of little dogs and little humans playing together drifts over to where they’re sitting, under the shade of a tree.

In other words, not very high on Root’s list of places that are reminiscent of hell. Heaven, maybe, but... 

Peripherally aware of an increasingly likely repeat poke in the side, Root lets her head fall onto her shoulder as she looks over at Shaw and smiles. “Is this the part where I say that angels don’t end up in h—”

“Thanks,” Shaw says drily, “But if you call me an angel one more time, I’m going to crack this bottle of wine over your head.”

Root sniffs. “I was talking about _me_.”

There’s a pause, then a quick, small huff, and Root takes a moment to enjoy the tiny, minute quirk in the corner of Shaw’s mouth, before it quickly disappears with another swig of wine.

They watch Bear trot around the perimeters of the park, supervising the children and smaller dogs. Root wonders what happened to the little posse of mid-sized dogs he’d had following him around just a few minutes ago.

Some time passes before Shaw picks up her line of unusually philosophical tipsy musings again. “What if we’d met at, like a supermarket or something?”

“I don’t know,” Root says. “Have you been to the grocery store at the corner of your block? Best contender for hell on earth _I’ve_ ever seen.”

Shaw’s gaze flicks over to her, hardly amused, before returning to watch Bear animatedly invite himself to a game of catch between another dog and its startled owner.

“Okay,” Root says, chewing on her lip and taking the question seriously. “If we’d met at the supermarket, I think I would have had to come up with a very good explanation as to why you were zip-tied to the fridge shelves in the milk section.”

Or, well, she meant to be serious, but the comfortable fog in her brain as a result of the combined sunshine and wine make it very difficult.

Shaw casts her eyes upward to the branches of the tree above them, shakes her head, and turns back to watch the section of the park where the dogs are playing.

They sit there quietly for a while, with Shaw only ever moving to take another sip of wine from the bottle and Root stretching out to cross one ankle over another. Root can feel her eyelids wanting to droop, and the slight breeze tickles her cheek and moves the warm air gently around the two of them.

She tries again to think of where Shaw was going with those questions, but instead finds herself very aware of the fact that she’s sitting unusually far apart from Shaw right now. This reminds her that she isn’t unaccustomed to just sitting on Shaw’s f—

“Hey, Bear,” Shaw says, sounding much less irritated talking to the dog than if she’d just been addressing Root, “Hey, buddy!”

Bear sits back on his haunches in front of them, surveying them solemnly. Shaw sits back, too, looking very put out by the fact that he didn’t meet her halfway for a belly rub.

“What’s up?” Root asks. She stifles a yawn. “Done intimidating all the smaller dogs in the park?”

Bear looks at her, now, and gruffly barks at her once.

“Well, now,” Root says, in surprise. She leans in a little closer to Shaw. “Sameen, your dog is barking at me.”

“Good boy.”

Root’s starting to feel a little unnerved. She also feels like the dog is giving her a stern look and a _woof_ ed-out talking-to, as though he had worked very hard earlier today to bring her along to the park and now she’s mucking everything up.

She feels almost chastised, by the _dog_ , and Root can feel her bottom lip starting to jut out petulantly.

With another woof, Bear turns and lopes back off to frolic with the other dogs, but in an almost paternal sort of way. Maybe because he towers above most of the little poodles and sausage dogs.

“Why are all those dogs so tiny?” Shaw asks idly, apparently following the same line of thought as Root.

“Maybe this is a small dog park.”

“Why are city dogs so small? What good is a dog if it’s the size of your hand?”

“My,” Root says, stretching languidly, enjoying the very casual way Shaw is watching her do so out of the corner of her eye. “You’re certainly on quite a roll with the questions today. Have you always been this curious, or are you just finally realizing how brilliant and wise I am?”

Shaw snorts at that, but also smiles, just a little.

Root’s nearly done her bottle of wine now. Her thoughts turn back to the first few questions Shaw had asked.

If it had been anyone else, those kinds of questions would have immediately been coded as wistful and speculative, examining how and why they’ve ended up sitting next to each other on the grass in a park in Manhattan.

But it’s Shaw, and so Root’s still turning it around in her mind.

“Did you think about going back to a normal life?” she asks, eventually, adding another question to the heap that seems to be growing at an exponential rate between the two of them lately. “After—At the beginning, of all this.”

“No,” Shaw says. The answer is immediate, and flat, but a quick glance sideways indicates that Shaw isn’t annoyed. She’s still got an almost tranquil look on her face as she looks out at the park, with a soft smile that Root’s beginning to associate with a petty sense of envy for the dog.

“Finding a normal job? Not having your friends and family think you’d died?” Root prods.

Shaw hesitates, at that, and Root wonders if she’s remembering that old co-worker from Shaw’s old life as a doctor, the one they’d run into a handful of weeks ago. Maybe she’s remembering other people from her old life.

“No,” Shaw repeats, but it’s not as decisive or clipped as it was before. Shaw turns her head to meet Root’s gaze, and Root’s now aware that they’re sitting much closer together than they had been a few minutes ago. “Why, do you?”

Root laughs. She repeats herself from before, from the last time they’d had this conversation. “Nobody’s checking up on where I went, Sam. Nobody from before.”

She sees, rather than hears, Shaw take in a deep, disgruntled breath through her nose, before letting it out in a measured exhale. Shaw’s eyes flick down to the grass between the two of them, briefly, and then she closes her eyes and turns her face up to the canopy of leaves.

They’re both leaning back on their hands, legs outstretched, and the fingers of their splayed hands are separated by just a few blades of grass. The same grass Root thinks she saw Shaw taking a quick peek at just a second ago.

Watching the way a strand of hair wisps around Shaw’s upturned face, Root lets her index finger stretch over to brush gently against Shaw’s.

Shaw doesn’t say anything, but there’s a slight shiver near her eyelashes, that Root sees.

So she lets her index finger cross over and rest on Shaw’s, carefully.

She’s content, here, with the sun dancing through the trees, watching the sun spots flickering over the two of them in the shade.

Then Root feels Shaw’s thumb brush up against hers, just ever so slightly—

And Root looks over again, and sees that Shaw’s finished her last swig of wine, and she’s now watching Root with that _look_ in her eye.

Shaw wets her lips before speaking, and Root’s breath catches in her throat. “You didn’t pack dessert.”

Root blinks, lifting one eyebrow in question.

Thumb tapping lightly against hers, in a slow, steady, soft rhythm, Shaw grins, just as slow. “You must have left it back at my place.”

All of a sudden Root is gripped by an intense, perilously close instinct to lean over and kiss her. To just kiss her like this while they’re almost but not quite even touching their fingers together, sprawled under a large tree, at what feels like the end of a picnic date in probably the only grassy place in the city for blocks.

Root’s gripped by how natural it would be, to just lean over and appear to be entirely normal and whimsical to any onlooker nearby.

And Root feels like maybe Shaw’s not aware of how banal and ordinary and average this is, this entirely unfamiliar, strange, _domestic_ situation they’ve nearly found themselves in right now.

So Root bites her lip, and smiles at Shaw, and thinks about how little things, like – like the not-quite hand-holding, and the way they’re secluded at the edge of a busy park – about how these things are probably things Shaw’s doing for Root’s benefit, maybe without even being aware of it.

She watches the way Shaw’s grin slowly curves up too, and thinks about how completely fine she is, with just everything that this is right now.

She thinks about how she doesn’t want to push for more, or complicate what they have.

So Root shakes her head, and tries to come up with a reason she can use to explain that _dessert,_ after all of this, would be too much for her, in a way that Shaw could understand. “Tempting as that sounds, I don’t— the Machine—”

She hates the way the look on Shaw’s face immediately shutters off, even if almost imperceptibly.

Before she can try to revise her excuse to sound more believable, the sound of a tiny little dog yapping its little head off, along with a general sense of commotion, carries across the park.

They both look over to see Bear, standing there somewhat bemusedly, as a small dog leaps at him and continues barking. There’s a person running towards the two dogs, probably the owner of the small dog, and it sounds like he’s yelling, “Leave my dog alone!”

Shaw’s on her feet the instant they see him grabbing at Bear’s collar, and Root’s right on her heels as they rush over.

 

* * *

 

 

Shaw sinks down onto the park bench beside Root. Bear’s still loping around, seemingly unfazed from the small kerfuffle earlier.

Between her, Root, and Bear’s own growls, the tiny little dog and its owner had been satisfactorily scared off within a matter of minutes.

Taking a large bite out of her “reward pretzel,” as Root had called it when she’d bought it for her from the vendor off to the side (because “4.6 seconds and no broken bones!”), Shaw mulls over Root’s odd behaviour today.

The sound of a small laugh gets Shaw to turn her head.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Root says, still smiling.

Shaw takes another bite of her pretzel and waits.

“You didn’t even sprain his wrist. Harold would be so proud.”

Chewing loudly, Shaw tries to look annoyed, but she’s disgruntled to realize that she _does_ feel a faint stirring of pride in the surprisingly non-violent (or, at least, very subtly – just _barely_ – violent) way she’d handled that idiot who’d tried to grab at Bear.

“Yeah?” she says instead, around the food in her mouth. “He wouldn’t be so proud of you. Terrorizing a little dog, Root? Really? What would the Machine say about that?”

Root lifts one hand to her implant and pretends to listen. “Hmm. She says… I wasn’t _terrorizing_ the dog, I was just looking at it.”

“Looking at it hard enough to make it start whimpering,” Shaw mutters.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the elbow of Root’s raised arm casually land on the back of the bench behind her. Root’s head turns – they’re sitting awfully _close_ now – and Root’s arm straightens out.

Shaw begins to sit back against the bench and slouch a little, so that her feet won’t need to leave the ground. But as soon as her back touches Root’s arm, Root stands abruptly.

Shaw looks up at her, startled. She blinks up at Root for a moment, then stands up as well.

“Time to go?” Root asks. Her voice is light.

Shaw pushes what’s left of her pretzel into Root’s hands so that Root can put it in the dumb picnic basket. Setting off without a word, feeling somewhat confused and hating it, Shaw looks around for Bear, only to find him sitting patiently on the path in front of her.

“Hey,” she says, grateful that the weird antsy feeling inside of her seems to dissipate a little as she draws closer to her best friend. “You ready to go home, pal?”

Bear snuffles at her a little, then goes around her to chase at Root’s heels.

“Sameen,” Root says, with that same petulant tone she’s been using all day every time Bear tries to give her some (very undeserved) attention.  

Shaw tries to ignore her, peeved at the millionth time today that Bear has snubbed her for Root, but her next step is blocked by Bear, who’s suddenly appeared in front of her again. They wait for Root to catch up, before Bear lets her continue walking.

Her eyes narrow at the dog as he circles around them, nosing at the two of them as if he’s shepherding them together.

“Sameen,” Root says again, this time clutching at Shaw’s elbow. “What’s he doing? What if I—step on his paw, or something?”

“Don’t,” Shaw says sharply. Not that that’s something Bear would let happen, anyway. “What is up with you?”

Bear lies down, somehow managing to curl himself around their feet.

In the midst of glaring down and trying to figure out what’s up with the damn dog, Shaw’s suddenly very conscious of the fact that she and Root are practically standing on top of each other now. There are faint hints of Root’s breath smelling like wine, and she stares at the lines of Root’s neck, leading down to her collarbone.

Root’s jaw tilts up, but Shaw knows she’s _watching_ her, so Shaw’s eyes stay focused on neck muscles, tightening after a dry swallow.

Shaw can feel herself leaning closer—

And Root’s head has turned away, and now she’s using her grip on Shaw’s forearms to extricate her feet from under Bear.

“Last one out of the park is Bear’s pooper scooper,” Root calls over her shoulder, as she practically flounces away.

There’s a quiet growling noise, and Shaw isn’t sure if it’s coming from her or Bear.

It’s weird, Shaw grumbles to herself as she follows. _What_ is Root’s sudden problem with PDA? And/or dessert? It’s never existed before.

Those can’t be it, Shaw decides, getting Bear’s leash on him and tugging him after Root, who’s somehow managed to cross the intersection and wait for them on the other side already.

Scowling, she remembers that Root loves PDA. Especially at fancy fundraiser gala shindigs, where Shaw usually spends just about as much time keeping Root’s hands from wandering too far as she does following the server with the crabcake platter around.

And Root loves dessert. Or she loves the opportunity to annoy Shaw, especially during the first few times Shaw had been led to expect a decadent twelve-layer chocolate cake but had ended up finding only whipped cream instead.

And Root definitely loves PDA _and_ dessert, so…

Something’s up, Shaw concludes. With both Root _and_ Bear. She scowls down at the dog again for good measure, but he’s too busy sniffing at the corner of a building to notice.

By the time they finally catch up to Root, a torrent of increasingly stupid thoughts have managed to situate themselves in the space between her eyebrows.

“Why so gloomy, Sam?” Root asks curiously. She makes to smooth out the annoyed lines crinkling in Shaw’s forehead, but pulls her hand back at the last second and tucks her hair behind her ear instead.

Shaw scowls at her some more, even harder now.

“Hmm,” Root says, mostly unfazed, but still curious.

“I have to tell you something,” Shaw eventually bursts out, after they’ve walked half a block in silence.

“Okay,” Root blinks, beginning to look a little alarmed.

Root’s probably just mirroring the look on Shaw’s face, which probably isn’t even reflecting a fraction of the alarm she’s feeling at having blurted that out. Shaw chews on the inside of her cheek in frustration.

“Erm,” Root says, after they walk another block in silence. “Did… you want to talk now?”

They’re standing on the sidewalk outside Shaw’s apartment building, with Root still holding onto the picnic basket in one hand, and Shaw’s forgotten pretzel in the other. Bear’s sitting patiently, looking up between them, and Shaw unhooks his leash since it’s clear the traitor isn’t about to go anywhere.

“Yeah. Okay,” Shaw says. She looks down at the leash in her hands. “So, you’re being kind of weird. Unless I’m being weird, by thinking that you’re feeling… off, or whatever.”

She looks up at Root, only to see Root watching her apprehensively.

“And I probably am,” Shaw continues, after a moment. “Being weird. The thing is, I think that… maybe I might be having feelings. Like… weird, weird feelings, for—”

Shaw _heard_ the stifled intake of breath Root took, and she’s immensely regretting everything right now.

It must have been the wine. She’s blaming it all on the wine.

That _entire_ bottle she had on her own, and the fact that she’s got less body mass than most people, and so her blood alcohol content _must_ be higher for whatever weird kind of wine was in that bottle—

“—for pretzels,” Shaw blurts out, grabbing a chunk of her half-eaten pretzel out of Root’s hand. She meant to grab the whole thing, but it kind of looks like Root’s got a vice grip on anything and everything she’s carrying, if the white knuckles are anything to go by.

She stares at Root, who’s got the oddest expression on her face that Shaw’s ever seen, and there isn’t much about Root’s face that _isn’t_ already odd. So Shaw looks down at her piece of pretzel, and then takes a giant bite out of it.

“Pretzels,” she repeats, mouth full of pretzel, only it comes out more like, “Pruhfchush.”

After a moment, she chances another look up at Root’s face, but only after taking another large bite.

“Right,” Root says. She’s still got that _weird_ look on her face. “Pretzels. Okay. Well…”

Shaw can feel her chewing speeding up.

“… It’s right here,” Root says, holding what’s left of the pretzel up. “When you want it.”

And with that, Root gives Shaw the picnic basket, takes a step back, and smiles, before turning around and walking away, still holding onto the pretzel.

Shaw shoves the rest of her piece into her mouth, watching Root walk away with her pretzel.

“That’s _my pretzel_ ,” she mumbles to herself.

A scoffing noise drifts up from the direction of the ground, and Shaw looks down to see Bear peering at her, seeming thoroughly unimpressed.

“You have a lot to answer for,” she informs the dog.

He scoffs again and follows her into the building, tail wagging behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, while struggling to write this chapter: w.o.o.f*
> 
> *= words. oh oh. fuck (whyyyy)


	6. Harold Finch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello this is nsfw

“Hey, Finch,” Shaw calls out as she hops into the abandoned subway on one foot, the other making its way into one of a pair of pumps. “I know you said to get here by 5:15, but traffic was—”

She cuts herself off and stands upright, wobbling only the slightest as the foot not wearing a heel tries to hover off the ground.

“What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question,” Root says, looking a little bemused.

Shaw tries (really, really hard) not to take in the sheer lace pattern dancing over Root’s collarbone, or the way the swoop of Root’s curls are offset to one side so that they tumble over her shoulder onto the rest of her entirely too form-fitting dress.

Root tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, and the movement of her arm causes Shaw’s eyes to snap away from where the dress pulls across Root’s hips and back up to Root’s (stupid, smirky) face.

Root tilts her head a little, and a faint shiver runs down Shaw’s spine when Root’s eyes travel languidly over Shaw’s own dress in return.

Shaw kicks off the one shoe she’d gotten on and stalks past Root in her bare feet, rubbing the gooseflesh that had prickled over her arms and wondering why she feels like she’s the only thing radiating an unnatural amount of heat in this godforsaken frozen tundra of a subway.

“Finch?” she calls irritably, looking around for him. “You didn’t tell me you needed two dates to this thing.”

“He’s not here,” Root says mildly, from all the way back at the entrance to the subway.

Shaw doesn’t spare her a second glance. Well, duh. She’d figured as much. She has eyes.

Rummaging around in her purse for her phone, Shaw only barely catches a movement a few feet next to her out of the corner of her eye. Raising her gun immediately, she flicks off the safety before—

“Oh,” she says, belatedly, but she’s already automatically lowered the gun and put the safety back on before fully realizing she’d been a hair trigger away from shooting Root point blank.

“Are we feeling jumpy, Sameen?” Root asks lightly, settling herself on the edge of Finch’s desk without an apparent shred of care in the world.

Annoyed, Shaw wonders how Root had managed to cross all the way over right next to her without noticing. She squints at Root suspiciously.

Root looks just as placid and taunting as always, and Shaw forces herself to look away from Root’s curving lips and down at her phone.

She glares at the gun in her bag as she holds the phone up to her ear. As the phone rings, Shaw’s annoyance continues to grow.

Mostly because of Root, because how can she be sitting there and lazily crossing one heel over the other as though she hadn’t been two seconds away from eating a bullet?

But also because of Finch, because where the hell is he?

But also because of herself, because how can her body immediately deem Root not to be a threat like that before her brain even got a chance to decide?

Root’s long fingers are curling over the edge of Finch’s desk, and Shaw glares at those, too, for good measure, as she wonders when exactly her body had made the colossally awful decision to feel _safe_ around Root.

“Ah, Ms. Shaw.”

“What’s going on, Finch?”

“Did you not receive my text messages? It had turned out that I wasn’t entitled to a plus one to this event, after all, so Mr. Reese is talking me through the reconnaissance this evening.”

Shaw scowls when Root’s head leans in close to hers, ostensibly to hear Finch’s end of the phone call, but the entirely too pleasant perfume Root’s wearing is reason enough for Shaw to lean away.

“I didn’t get any texts from you.”

“Hmm,” comes the tinny sound of Finch sounding a little _too_ unconcerned about this miscommunication. “I’ll have to look into that. Maybe there’s a reception deadzone in the subway and my messages never sent.”

At this, a small giggle escapes Root. Shaw looks sharply up at her.

“Hang up,” Root mouths, and a full-blown grin is stretching across her face.

Shaw squints at her mistrustfully, but snaps the phone shut.

“Let me guess,” Root says, crossing her arms and settling back onto the desk (Shaw’s eyes linger on Root’s chest for _maybe_ a handful of milliseconds too long, but definitely not much more than that), “Harry asked you to accompany him to this gala tonight, too, then didn’t bother to update either of us on no longer being required to attend.”

Shaw blows out a heavy breath. She’s starting to get a familiar mixture of apprehension and anticipation rising in her gut.

“So here we are,” Root says, and when did Finch’s desk move and get within reaching distance for Shaw? “All dressed up, and nowhere to go.”

Root smiles, and it’s so overwhelmingly _familiar_ that Shaw instinctively takes a step forward.

“But then who really needs a reason to get dressed up and have some quality girl-on-girl time?”

This all feels so normal—for them, anyway—that Shaw’s stupid, obviously malfunctioning reflexes don’t even rear up in the slightest when Root pulls her in with a finger crooked into the strap of her dress.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Root,” Shaw murmurs, after some time.

“Mhm?” Root murmurs back, against Shaw’s lips.

Shaw pulls her head back, and stops to let her breathing return to normal. Her hand covers Root’s and gently drags it back down to her hip for a moment.

“Did you know he thanked us for taking Bear to the vet?”

Root’s eyebrows furrow, and she opens her eyes to peer up at Shaw in confusion, plainly wondering why Shaw is thinking about Finch at a time like this. “Oh. Harry? From… that time?”

Shaw nods, looking down at Root’s fingers playfully weaving around Shaw’s hand. Her own fingers twitch, but otherwise stay carefully still.

“ _Us_ , eh?” Root asks quietly, after a moment. Her own hand stills, and the other one that had been creeping down Shaw’s back does as well.

“I mean, he was really just thanking me,” Shaw blurts out quickly, not at all ready to decipher what _that_ raise in Root’s eyebrows means.

The expression on Root’s face swiftly changes, as if she’s more comfortable with this conversation now, too, as she playfully says, “Yes, but who drove you there?”

Shaw sniffs, but doesn’t reply.

“Well, you can tell Harold thank you for letting me borrow his car,” Root says.

“I will not,” Shaw says huffily, especially now that she’s been reminded of the very last time Root’s ever going to get anywhere near a steering wheel around her. “You nearly gave me whiplash.”

“Oh, but that wasn’t from my driving...”

The timbre of Root’s voice is slowly climbing back down to that place where all Shaw can do is scoff in reply, and her hand is gently resting on the back of Shaw’s neck as if to soothe the imaginary whiplash.

“Well, not in a car, anyway,” Root finishes, before pulling Shaw’s lips back down to hers.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Shaw’s tired of cricking her neck down halfway to Root’s height on the desk by now, and so she places her palm on Root’s sternum and pushes while tugging Root’s dress up enough to allow her legs to spread far enough to let Shaw step in between them.

She pauses, for the briefest moment, looking down at the way Root’s hair is fanned out amongst all the papers on the desk, before placing her arms on either side of Root’s torso and holding herself up above her.

The feel of Root’s leg hooking around her back causes her to nudge her pelvis forward, just a bit, but it’s enough for Root’s mouth to open with a soft little gasp so that Shaw’s tongue can snake in.

Root arches her back up, trying to press her torso against Shaw’s, and Shaw slips her arm under the small of Root’s back. With a frown, Shaw’s vaguely aware of Root settling comfortably back down onto the desk, and so she pulls Root’s hips against her own with one insistent tug, wondering why Root hasn’t already taken the initiative to flip them over.

Recently there have been some changes that Shaw has noticed, just small ones, but there nonetheless. Like this lack of initiative, as Shaw rolls her pelvis into Root slowly and steadily, only to get a hand skimming gently over her back in response.

Like this lack of creativity, as Shaw tilts Root’s body so that she’d have the perfect angle to get the leverage to position them however she wanted, only for Root’s hand to run deeper into her hair.

Like how she’s been a little less game for the hints of interesting things Shaw’s been trying to get her to do, a little less patient and a little more hurried when it comes to how long it takes for her to tense up and reach her peak before pulling Shaw back in for a kiss.

Shaw slides her hand up along Root’s inner thigh and watches intently. She’s looking for a tell-tale flutter of the lashes, a soft flaring of the nose, but instead what she gets is lips pressing together in concentration before Shaw gets bodily hauled up and onto the desk. It’s now a little awkward to keep her hand where it was, and Shaw throws out both hands to keep herself upright above Root.

Root’s grinning up at her now, and somehow, once again, Root’s managing to touch her from underneath, and Shaw squirms briefly before Root’s fingers deftly tease aside her underwear.

Here she is, again, the way it’s always been recently, with Shaw looming above a prone Root and still finding herself throwing her head back, too aware of Root watching her from below, smirk gone as she studies Shaw’s face.

Shaw holds herself up and away, hands and knees pushing against the desk, knuckles whitening around the edge of Finch’s desk even as she begins to grind against Root’s hand. Root’s other hand glides up along the sensitive backs of her thighs, over the dress where it bunches up around her hips, settling onto the small of her back as it arches in response to Root’s languid, slow strokes.

The faint _why_ that had been lingering around the outskirts of every interaction she’s had with Root since that stupid, stupid day in the park weeks ago, when she gave Root far too much ammunition by trying to have a _conversation_ , is promptly chased away the moment Root’s fingers curl inside and press deeply against her inner walls.

Forgetting all about how she’d been trying to hold herself aloofly away, Shaw buries her face into Root’s collarbone – that slim, delicate space in between the bone and the top of the shoulder, biting down when the pad of Root’s thumb begins its small circular motions. At this point, Shaw doesn’t even care to decide if she’s the one driving their movements or if somehow yet again Root is managing to fuck her from the bottom.

There’s something _closed_ off, just the slightest, in Root’s expression, when Shaw draws her head back up to stare down at her, hips undulating in time with Root’s fingers within. Save for the low moans Shaw is careful to control, the explicit sounds of Root continuing to fuck her, and the rocking noise the desk is making, the air is empty and silent.

Shaw wraps one hand around the base of Root’s neck just to see her jaw locked open like Shaw’s, to hear her breathing just as audibly ragged as Shaw’s, and a bolt of satisfaction runs through her when she sees Root’s eyes slide shut in pleasure.

Root’s own hips are beginning to squirm, now, as Shaw’s thumb slides up to the pulse point on her neck, pressing until Root harshly digs her nails into Shaw’s back.

There’s still something closed off about Root, where even her tongue (that unreasonably talented tongue) will flick at her nipple through her dress like there’s no tomorrow, but the kisses they share when Shaw feels herself about to tumble over the precipice are no better than closed-mouth.

Root’s mouth mirrors hers as it falls open with a strangled cry from the back of her throat when she comes, but when Shaw tries to slip her tongue into Root’s mouth, Root promptly closes the kiss with a loud _smooch_ and a quick bite of Shaw’s lip before that _smile_ peeks up at her.

Shaw doesn’t miss a beat, sliding off the desk and getting away from that irritatingly just-less-than-genuine smile on Root’s face. She sinks down, pulling Root towards the edge of the desk so that her dress rides up, unaware of the stubborn resolution she’s just made to spend more time than she ever has before on being patient.

She resolves on going slow, on teasing Root, running her lips along the line of Root’s underwear, lapping with her tongue slow and hot and _firm_ over the fabric, dismissing the “oh, God” that escapes in response. She’s intent on getting Root to _beg_ , the way she used to do so many months ago.

So she runs one finger along the length of Root, back and forth slowly, and presses a kiss to the ridiculously sensitive spot where Root’s knee meets her inner thigh, pleased when Root shudders a little and presses the heel of her hand to her mouth.

“Shaw,” Root whispers. “I want you in me.”

Shaw doesn’t say anything, just starts tugging Root’s underwear down slowly, inch by inch, as her tongue flicks out along Root’s inner thigh.

“Sameen,” Root says, frustration lacing her voice. “I need—”

Shaw decides that’s good enough, for today, because she can’t help herself from wanting to reach for Root either. She slips one finger in, and that shuts Root up, then another, and Shaw can feel heat pooling in her belly again as she notes how easy it is to slide right into Root.

So she withdraws and grins at the soft whine Root lets out. She waits till Root lifts herself onto her elbows and looks down at Shaw at the edge of the desk, before slipping three fingers into her mouth and watching Root’s pupils dilate further at the sight.

She slides all three fingers into Root, slowly, then bends her head and presses her mouth above her hand against Root. The sound of crinkling paper gets her to look up, only to see Root scrabbling along the desk for something to hold.

She goes faster, slipping her fourth finger inside, and with each thrust Shaw plunges deeper inside of Root, tries to scrape the tips of her fingers the furthest they’ll go.

And Root’s quiet, weirdly so, no _God you’re so good_ or _right there right there please don’t stop_ to accompany the breathy moans or (frantic) wiggling, and Shaw frowns and uses her other hand to press against Root’s pelvis and make it easier for her mouth to press against Root almost a little _too_ hard.

Shaw relies on the countless previous times she’s heard Root’s moans build like this (God, _how_ many other times has she heard Root moan like this?) to know that Root’s coming close, to recognize the way Root’s entire body seems to be convulsing with pleasure and how each full-body shudder corresponds with the feel of Root practically trying to draw her in, deeper, and harder.

And then as Shaw wills her legs not to tremble as they flex in a half-squat in front of the desk so that her hand can continue to essentially jackhammer into Root, hitting that sweet spot over and over again, as her other hand precisely spreads Root apart to keep her exposed to Shaw’s nimble, pointed tongue, she feels Root arch up and reach for her.

Root’s fingers dig into Shaw’s scalp as she comes, but Shaw stays put, continuing despite the feel of Root tightening all around her. Finally Root yanks her away and the hiss of pain that Shaw growls out is one of smug satisfaction, because there’s a glazed-over look on Root’s face as her entire body involuntarily shudders every few seconds, riding out the aftershocks.

Shaw stands, then, adjusting her dress, studies Root as she’s half-turned on her side on the desk, looking utterly spent with her dress still up around her hips and almost as though she’s concentrating on _not_ experiencing any more aftershocks.

When Root’s eyes open and focus on Shaw, there’s a softness to her gaze that Shaw hasn’t seen for a very, very long time.

All of a sudden, Shaw’s seized with the thought that people are always talking about how emotionally vulnerable they feel after sex, which she's never experienced for herself but sometime during college she'd learned to spot the warning signs in other people and the look in Root’s eyes right now—

Shaw bends to pick up her heels and abruptly turns to leave the subway before Root can say anything.

She doesn’t look at Root as she goes.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Oh,” Finch says, sounding surprised. “Ms. Groves. Why are you still…?”

“Hi, Harry,” Root says lightly, leaning back in his chair and swivelling around. “How was the gala?”

She pointedly gives his less-than-formal outfit a once-over.

“Ah, well,” he coughs a little, eyes bulging just the slightest in alarm, “Fine. Just fine.”

“Glad to hear that,” is all Root says in response, before getting up and making to leave.

Any other day, and she’d definitely have been in the mood to hover over Finch’s shoulder, lobbing well-sharpened taunts at him till he thought twice the next time he thought he could pull one over both her _and_ Shaw, but today…

Now that her suspicions have been confirmed, there isn’t any point to hanging around anymore.

Finch watches her leave out of the corner of his eye, and Root can practically hear the inner debate raging within him. She keeps walking, not entirely sure if she wants him to say something or not.

“Did you by any chance…” he blurts out, before thinking better of it and falling silent.

Root stops at the entrance to the subway and leans against the vending machine, crossing her arms thoughtfully.

“Do you have any idea why She wasn’t able to get a hold of me?”

Finch had followed her to the vending machine, his eyes shiftily focused somewhere to the left of Root’s head. “It appears we may have a deadzone somewhere within the subway.”

“Oh, is that what we’re calling timed Faraday cages now?”

Finch sputters a little at that.

“Did you think she wouldn’t tell me about it?”

He sighs. “I suppose I was being a tad optimistic.”

Root smiles, despite herself. The account she’d gotten from the Machine had had him standing awkwardly in the center of the subway and asking Her to leave them some privacy, along with a half-hearted offer to handle any numbers that might come up.

She becomes aware of Finch standing there, just watching her. He’s got that solemn look on his face, the one he gets when he’s just _doing his best_ but things just aren’t working out.

Root shakes her head, then swoops in for a brief kiss on his cheek, before turning again to leave.

“Oh, before I forget,” she says over her shoulder, as she’s already walking away. “We may have… _borrowed_ your desk. Thanks, Harry.”

There’s a small choking sound coming from behind her. Root doesn’t laugh, but there’s a refreshing briskness in her step as she walks aboveground and listens to the Machine chatter in her ear.


	7. Team Samaritan

“What’s happening?” Shaw asks, dropping the go-bag she’d hastily thrown together once she’d gotten an encrypted 9-1-1 message from Finch.

Root and Finch barely even look up from their screens as they acknowledge her arrival (if not her question) with identical grunts, both with their fingers flying over the keys. It would’ve been clear, even without the way Reese is nervously double-checking that every item in their armoury is ready to go, that something urgent is up.

Once again, Shaw curses the fact that her apartment is located an extra five minutes away from their headquarters compared to both Finch and Reese, meaning they both were keyed in to what was happening before she was. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, to be able to get some amount of distance from the interpersonal relationships that looped through their team’s dynamics after the job was done and interaction wasn’t a necessity. Now, though, she’s gritting her teeth and hating the fact that Finch and Reese both know more about the current, clearly urgent situation than she does.

As for Root, well, Shaw can only imagine that she was the harbinger of all this frenzied activity, since she hasn’t seen hide nor hair of Root for weeks.

Not that it bothers Shaw.                                                                                               

She’d decided, already. About a few days after the last time Root had left.

Root shows up whenever the hell she or the Machine feel like it, and that’s none of Shaw’s business. (Except for when it directly relates to her paid work career business.)

It has no effect on Shaw whatsoever.

(Shaw reminds herself of that, as faint stirrings of annoyance seem to start dredging up from within her, as she stares at Root and wonders why Root is still clacking away at her workstation with no extra attention paid to keeping Shaw in the know.)

“Martine’s gone,” Reese says, in a low voice, obviously trying not to distract the two nerds from whatever it is they’re working on. He eyes her go-bag with a sceptical look on his face, then hands her the keys to his reserved section of the armoury. The look in his eyes as the keys dangle in front of her is serious, and Shaw can’t even detect any of the stubborn refusal in his expression that she’d always imagined would be there if she managed to get her hands on any of his most prized weaponry.

Shaw stares at the keys, refusing to touch them, because her finally getting her hands on Reese’s precious private stock (and with such little effort on her part) would mean that—

“What do you mean, _gone_?”

“She’s no longer being held—” Reese begins.

“Which means she’s _escaped_ ,” Shaw says, flatly.

“—in the secure holding cell we’d—”

“The cave we locked her in,” Shaw says.

Reese shoots her a dark look. He waits until Shaw rolls her eyes and lifts her hands halfway up, signalling that she’d wait till he was done with his debrief before chiming in again.

“We don’t know how she’s done it yet, but we need to check on the others, and also get her back,” Reese says. “Alive,” he adds, a beat later.

The hairs on the back of Shaw’s neck prickle, and only partly because she’s detected Root coming up from behind and standing just a little too close.

“She’s been travelling in the shadow map,” Root says, with hints of strain coming through her voice. “But She thinks there might be a lead on where it is that Martine is headed towards.”

Shaw catches Root and Reese sharing a _glance_ over her head, loaded with meaning and non-verbal agreement, just as if _they_ were the ones who were partners once again. As if she wouldn’t be able to see, (and wouldn’t be reminded of), their unlikely partnership during their endeavour to free her from Samaritan’s clutches.

She abruptly stops that train of thought.

“I’ll go after her,” Reese decides, slinging his own go-bag over his shoulder and stalking over to the shelves of ammunition to load up on extras.

“That’s a good idea,” Finch says from behind, finally pausing his frenzied typing and clicking. “And I think you’d be best suited to checking in on Mr. Lambert.”

Shaw knows even before she turns around to study Finch’s face, that he’s directing his latter comment entirely to Root.

Shaw grits her teeth at what appears to be Finch’s staunch refusal to meet her eyes, and drops her go-bag to join Reese at the ammunitions shelf. Her movements are tightly controlled, wound up, and if one person so much as tries to coddle her again for fear of her stay with Samaritan rushing back to confront her now, after all this time—

“Ms. Shaw, I think you’d be best suited to talking with Mr. Greer,” Finch says, but he’s still carefully focused on his monitors, and Shaw knows he’s uncomfortable with making sustained eye contact even if he is assigning her to a significant part of this operation. Shaw doesn’t know what she would have done if they had tried to keep her off of this entirely, but she knows it wouldn’t have been pretty. It also wouldn’t have made any sense at all, not least because it wouldn’t have been prudent at this specific moment in time where the window to apprehend Martine Rousseau grew smaller and smaller.

“What about you?” Shaw asks, as she inspects her bag for items she’s missing, relieved and anxious all at once.

Finch frowns, and doesn’t answer.

“He’s going to be working with Her,” Root says, finally looking up at Shaw, if only for a brief moment as her eyes skitter away the moment their gazes lock.

Root slams her laptop shut and shoves it in her bag, before striding out towards the subway exit. “Let’s go, kids. Harry can stay here and try to figure out if Samaritan somehow managed to get online again, and I’ll give you a full briefing in the car.”

Shaw and Reese both hurry after her, and this time Shaw’s the one shooting Reese a non-verbal _why?_ and getting a non-verbal shrug back in response.

“Why’s he the one talking to the Machine right now? Isn’t that your job?” Shaw can feel herself settling back into their old rhythm of perfectly normal, perfectly focused interactions when working together on missions. She’s not unpleased with how comfortable it is, to just be working together again, with no undercurrent of emotional tension that seems to thread through the slightest glance they share, much less any conversation.

That thought abruptly flies out the moment Shaw looks over at Root and sees a strained jaw and a hard gaze that refuses to meet hers.

“I need to be out there,” Root says tightly, after some time, appearing to have had chewed on her answer for a while.

Shaw waits, but Root doesn’t elaborate any further. Her clenched fists and angry browline don’t go unnoticed, and Shaw decides to drop the topic before they end up prodding further into any of the personal motivations that are driving all this barely suppressed rage leaking every which way out of Root right now.

Grimly, Shaw double checks to make sure that she remembered to grab the toolkit she’s been careful to keep out of Finch’s view, lest he object to any part of her persuasive tools set. So, granted, Shaw might just be looking forward to seeing Greer’s old, leathered, undoubtedly haggard face again for reasons that might be just a _tad_ personal as well. But she has a feeling that whatever she’s got planned for Greer in terms of information retrieval tactics, formidable as she’s certain they are, has got nothing on whatever Root’s thinking about that has brought that grim slash of a smile on.

Any other person might almost feel sorry for what’s in store for Lambert.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Root’s mind is, for once, blank.

She can feel her thoughts winding their way through to her consciousness, little analyses of her situation and Shaw’s situation and this entire situation with these Samaritan pawns, but before they gain any traction they always slip away, blown apart by the crushing weight of her fury overriding anything else she can process right now.

Root’s mind is a smooth, blank canvas of fury, rippling around and filling her up and making her feel simultaneously more _alive_ and yet more deadened inside than she’s felt in a long, long time.

She has to remind herself to breathe. To listen to the Machine in her one ear, and listen to the outside world in her other. To be _careful_ , instead of just bursting into the abandoned building she’d been led to after over six and a half hours of _conversation_ with that smug, slick dickhead who wasn’t nearly so smug or slick by the time she left him in his cell. This time, Root made sure, Lambert had been left to rot, no matter what Finch’s intention had been when they’d first locked the Samaritan trio away for life, more or less fully intact.

Specific concepts, like flashbacks to the ripping emptiness that had characterized that period when everything about Shaw’s condition had been a gigantic, taunting question mark, aren’t allowed to take root in her rage. And because of that, Root welcomes her anger.

It focuses her.

It keeps her from dwelling on things she’s already dwelt on long enough.

It sharpens her plan for infiltrating this building and leaving no survivors in her wake, despite having promised the others that she would wait for backup before storming in to find that _woman_ , the one who had seen all the sides of a broken, hopeless Shaw that Root couldn’t even begin to guess at, that were sure to never have the opportunity to be revealed again to another living soul as long as either of them were alive.

In hindsight, it surprises absolutely no one when Root’s anger, thundering and empowering and clear, taunted by the lure of finally being able to do exactly to Martine Rousseau what had been firmly entrenched into Root’s brain after months of vivid, methodical dreams detailing everything she would do to her if given a chance, leads Root to actually attempt to force her way into a trap.

But it also numbs the impact of the sudden, cracking pain exploding behind her eyes as she’s ambushed, and for that split second as Root falls to the ground, her mind is blissfully blank save for the thought that at least this time, at least it isn’t Shaw who gets taken.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Are you an _idiot_?” is the first thing Root sees when she opens her eyes.

She doesn’t hear it, she can’t hear anything, and in a series of heart-stopping moments, Root becomes aware of not being able to hear the words belonging to the angry shape of Shaw’s mouth in the ear Control hadn’t butchered, and not being able to hear the Machine in her outfitted ear, either. Instead, Root hears a loud fuzzing, leaking out from her brain, almost painfully present in place of the sounds Shaw continues to make as she leans over Root’s prone figure on the ground.

The fuzzing quickly disappears as Root’s eyes continue to focus, locking onto the concern in Shaw’s hard eyes, hard, untouched, unharmed face, in front of her. Her mind latches on to every detail, every flutter of hair lingering above as Shaw bends over her and peers into her face, and the static begins to settle.

“—of course I would get sent in after you, and now look at how useless we are in here,” is the first thing Root eventually hears.

“Where—?” Root tries to sit up, but immediately regrets it when it feels like a broken rib tries to jaggedly cut its way out.

“Careful,” Shaw automatically says. “Idiot,” she adds after checking under Root’s shirt to make sure nothing actually poked its way through her chest.

Root closes her eyes briefly, then wheezes carefully.

“Where?” she repeats in a rasp, trying not to breathe too much lest she go and puncture a lung while she’s at it.

“Take a minute and focus on your breathing,” Shaw orders, watching the movements of Root’s torso as she obeys.

“Now cough,” Shaw says, and Root winces. She doesn’t want to, but she trusts Shaw, so she makes a feeble attempt at coughing. Shaw nods, palms resting gently over her ribcage. Several moments later, Shaw answers Root’s question. “Where do you think?”

 _That’s not an answer_ , Root wants to say, with a wry smirk and amused tone, but she just continues wheezing and waits silently.

“We’re in whatever trap Greer managed to set up for us,” Shaw eventually says, looking around the tiny cube encased in concrete that they’re sitting in. Her eyes are evaluating the sad, dirty twin bed in the corner, and Root carefully moves her head and starts wondering how they’re going to get her there, too.

“The one you walked straight into,” Shaw adds with a scowl. “Or _ran_ , probably, because Reese and I were less than an hour away. We told you to _wait_.”

Root closes her eyes. She really doesn’t like how she can’t just walk away from Shaw’s nagging right now.

As if Shaw knows exactly what thought is crossing her mind, her next words are distinctly laced with a smirk. “So now you’re stuck here in this facsimile of a cell, totally incapacitated. Not such a genius when you don’t get fed what to do by a robot, are you?”

Root tests out whether she can clench her jaw without it also wanting to explode from pain. Happily, she discovers she can, so she grits her teeth together and lets Shaw have a rare opportunity to say whatever she wants without Root being able to interrupt or deflect or redirect. She figures they’ll eventually get to how Shaw also ended up in this cell with her, because at this rate Shaw seems to be talking quite a bit, unhindered by Root or her own reservations.

Root’s eyes fly open.

Shaw’s staring down at Root with similarly widened eyes, except hers are startled by the sudden movement. In contrast, Root’s are speculative, and she wonders if maybe she should have tried this sooner.

She waits some more, waiting to see what else Shaw might share.

Shaw narrows her eyes, and Root’s sure she managed to pick up on the lightbulb that had practically gone off over Root’s head.

After a moment, still looking at Root suspiciously, Shaw’s hands tug Root’s shirt back down and she settles onto her haunches beside Root’s body on the ground. “Unlike some people, I happen to be a forward thinker, so we shouldn’t be in here much longer than another few hours. The boys are working on it as we speak.”

Root quirks an eyebrow.

Shaw shrugs, eyes sliding away. “The Machine was worried and wanted… I was the closest when all the alerts came rolling in. Probably _fifty_ notifications that you were out of reach.”

Despite herself, Root smiles a little.

“Oh, you think that’s funny? No wonder you get along with it so well, both of you can beat a dead horse a hundred feet into the ground.”

Root tries not to let her smile grow.

 _So how exactly did your own stroll into this trap to come find me play out, then?_ she wants to ask, but she adds that to the pile of useless questions for which she wouldn’t get a straight answer even if she could actually ask them. She figures it’s somewhere between _Developing a habit of worrying about me?_ and _So are we both sharing that bed?_ along the scale of unlikely-to-be-received-well questions.

“I think we can move you,” Shaw says absently, studying the cot again. “You should probably be on that bed instead of the floor.”

Root blinks.

Shaw studies her bruises again. “This is going to hurt.”

Closing her eyes in resignation, Root manages to wiggle her fingers and faintly say, “’Kay.”

The smile Shaw has on her face is almost fond as she positions herself at Root’s feet. “I knew you wouldn’t have any objections to a little bit of pain.”

 _Especially since you’re taking me to bed_ , Root thinks wryly.

“We _are_ ending up in a bed, which is a change,” Shaw mutters, before rolling her eyes at herself. She fixes Root with an accusing stare as she begins to carefully drag her by the feet across the floor, as if it’s somehow Root’s fault Shaw ended up finishing the innuendo on her behalf.

Root swallows her grin as brilliant white flashes of pain absorb her rather sizeable amusement at how similar their trains of thought actually are. After what feels like ten entire excruciating minutes, Root contemplates encouraging herself to pass right out when Shaw stretches her feet up onto the cot and the bulk of her weight rests on her beaten torso.

“I need you to lift your shoulders—use your elbows—” To her credit, Shaw works quickly, hoisting the rest of Root up onto the cot and gently setting her back down.

Root can’t hear anything again. She knows Shaw’s saying something. There’s too much blood rushing in her head, and the pounding of all her nerves and veins and pain receptors everywhere else in her body are overpowering.

A gentle weight settles comfortingly on the side of her neck, cupping her face.

Root focuses on controlling her breathing, willing it to slow down, so she can draw enough energy to fantasize about the kind of expression that could (but probably isn’t) on Shaw’s face right now as she tries to be uncharacteristically soothing.

As her heart rate returns to normal, Root keeps her eyes closed, unable to stop the furrow in her brow when she feels Shaw’s touch lift up and away. She’s too weak to have lifted her head and followed Shaw’s hand to prolong the contact, and too proud to have done so under normal circumstances anyway, but a small coil of bittersweet pressure lodges in the center of her broken chest.

Root can feel Shaw perched on the tiny bed next to her, can feel the eyes probably studying every micro-expression she doesn’t have the energy to try to mask on her face.

“Ow,” Root whispers when she opens her eyes. She tries to smile half-heartedly up at Shaw. “Can’t picture… doing that myself. Without you.”

The pauses forced upon her by the tightness in her throat make her words come out ten shades more serious than the light-hearted tone she’d been aiming for.

Shaw’s face is carefully impassive as she looks back down at her. Somehow, that adds more coils to the weight in her chest, more than a grumpy frown or angry scowl would have. Root’s gotten good at reading Shaw’s face – better than almost anyone else, she’d wager – but right now, after everything, she’s suddenly catapulted back to being unable to stop thinking about how uneasily undefined everything between them is, and how Root knows she’s as much to blame for that as Shaw is.

"You idiot," Shaw says quietly. Her face is still...  _still_ , but her eyes dart back and forth between Root's. "What would you do if I never came after you?"

Root closes her eyes. She never realized how valuable the ability to be able to make a quick excuse and quick escape had been, till now. Right here, now, literally trapped between a concrete wall and Shaw’s body, Root pours all her effort into trying to dampen the feverish analysis of Shaw’s words trying to inflate and soar and fill her with unrealistic expectations.

The unmistakeable feeling of Shaw’s lips brush against Root’s forehead for half a second, feather light, and Root can’t help the sharp inhale or equally sharp jab of pain that results.

“We’ll be out soon,” Shaw says even more quietly, but the confidence in her voice is unshakable, and Root is further soothed by the reassurance that help is definitely on the way. “Get some rest, you might have to run soon.”

When Root cracks her eyes open a few minutes later, Shaw has moved to the other corner of the cell, and it looks like she’s inspecting a faint crack in the ground.

Root closes her eyes again and tries to sleep.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Ostensibly, she’s looking for anything that could hasten their escape from this dingy little cell Martine had shoved them into with a casual smirk and a, “Enjoy yourselves, while you can. We’ve got plans for you, and you won’t have much time to enjoy much of anything after that,” but Shaw’s been studying the same useless spot on the floor for five minutes with only one persisting thought in her mind:

What _was_ it about Root’s skin?

She idly rubs at a crack with her thumb, remembering the way she’d run the same thumb over the side of Root’s soft, warm jaw after having had to inflict all that pain that Root had acquiesced to, but not wanted.

Somehow, no matter if it’s been hours or weeks since the last time Shaw had gotten a chance to draw close to Root’s skin, she’s always mesmerized by how _touchable_ it is. Lately, the time gap has been more along the weeks scale, if not longer, and they didn’t even sleep together all those times. More often than not, Root would float in, then whisk off, like a stupid leaf in a stupid autumn eddy. Stupidly hard to catch, if someone wanted to do something as pointless as that, and entirely infuriating.

But pretty, also. In a wispy sort of force of nature sort of way.

Shaw squints around the cell, looking for something to blame for that uncommonly gushy thought. The last thing she needs right now is for her thinking to get clouded by something as trite as gas being pumped into their holding cell. Especially since Shaw is becoming more and more convinced that sheer proximity to Root’s skin has already been causing reckless abandon and a complete break of character for her almost since the moment they first drew close to one another.

It must be the skin, Shaw decides, finally settling on the easiest thing to blame. Something about the scent of Root, or the way it looks like it promises all sorts of enticing things about how it feels, or…

A soft snore interrupts the musings that were probably brought on by claustrophobia.

Shaw looks over her shoulder. She studies the profile of Root’s face, as she sleeps unusually flat on her back, shallow breaths entering and exiting with little puffs through her open mouth.

Rubbing her arms idly, Shaw looks at Root once more, noting the goosebumps on Root’s exposed arms in her short sleeved shirt.

“Root?” she asks in a low voice. There’s no response, no change in Root’s shallow breathing. “You’re asleep.”

Shaw finds herself standing next to the cot, and doesn’t remember giving her brain the _okay_ to tell her muscles to move her over so she’s standing this close next to Root and Root’s _skin_.

Shaw touches Root’s nose lightly, and sighs. It’s about as cold as she was afraid it would be, and there are no blankets or extra clothes lying around. The obvious thing to do is glaring her in the face, but Shaw frowns. She’s not about to let herself become a cliché, even if—

Root’s teeth click together lightly.

Shaw squints down at her, trying to see if that was really Root’s teeth chattering, or if Root wasn’t actually cold at all, and maybe Shaw wasn’t freezing, and maybe Shaw didn’t actually have to climb into this tiny ass bed and wrap herself carefully around Root’s stupid cold lanky injured body to maximize efficiency of the heat they were both losing by the second in this freezing rock box they were locked in.

Root sighs a little, leaning into the warmth of Shaw’s body as she gingerly lowers herself onto the bed.

Carefully placing her arms and legs over Root’s body, Shaw’s not at all happy to see how contentedly Root rolls right into her, as though it was second nature for her to cuddle up to someone without letting at least one broken rib and a plethora of other injuries stop her. Wriggling a bit, Shaw tries to keep their chests apart, because if any part of Root needed to actually be chilled right now, it should be her rapidly swelling ribcage.

Root doesn’t respond to Shaw’s impatient little shimmying next to her, sound asleep, so Shaw’s not going to bother adjusting the petulant expression she knows is on her face right now. It figures that Root would have eventually managed to trick Shaw into cuddling with her at one point or another, and if Root’s skin wasn’t such a stupidly convenient source of heat there’s no way she’d be allowing herself to wrap around Root as though Root were a giant bumpy teddy bear.

Or body pillow, Shaw muses thoughtfully. They’d never really been her thing but if Shaw pretended, she could picture Root to just be a large, soft sleep aide she could encircle between her legs and hang onto while she drifted off to sleep.

She chews on that for a minute. For some reason she’s getting stuck on the encircled between her legs part and now a horrifyingly pleasant warmth is beginning to spread upwards and outwards from her lower belly.

Shaw lightly head butts Root in the shoulder, careful not to wake her, but too annoyed to have refrained from risking it in the first place.

She knows she needs to get some rest, too. Rare moments to catch some sleep should never be squandered. But Root’s stupid skin, which started this whole mess in the first place, just drove it that much further away for her.

Squeezing her eyes firmly shut, Shaw sternly instructs her body clock to wake her the moment Root’s breathing so much as changes. She needs to have enough time to extricate herself before Root wakes up and all of this gets added to the heaping mountain of emotional junk piling up between them.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Root opens her eyes blearily. Stiffly, she raises her arms up in an attempt to stretch, but gives up halfway.

Shaw watches her from the other end of the cell, parked in front of the door, looking for structural weaknesses. She doesn’t say anything, but she is thankful that she managed to get out of the bed in time.

“Did you sleep at all?” Root’s voice is scratchy, but it sounds much better than it had before. Torn, Shaw can’t decide if she’s glad that Root seems well enough to not end up being as much of a burden as expected during their escape, or dismayed at how fleeting Root’s blessed inability to open her mouth had been.

“No,” she says gruffly, turning away and running her fingers along the bottom of the door.

From behind, she can hear Root’s laboured breathing as she forces herself into a sitting position. A quick glance over her shoulder to see Root slumped carefully against the concrete wall ensures she hadn’t made things any worse, and Shaw continues estimating the amount of distance they’d need to clear if the door were to be blown open from the outside.

The silence stretches between them for some time, before Shaw finally turns around and sits facing the bed. She’s not surprised to see that Root has been watching her.

Shaw lifts her chin and stares back at Root, almost defiantly. She’s not afraid of a little eye contact, but barely a second has passed before Shaw realizes that their gazes have locked, as they often do, and now they’re caught in what essentially amounts to a juvenile staring contest with entirely non-juvenile intentions behind each stare.

Abruptly, Root shivers and looks away.

“There’s plenty of space here,” Root says, patting the bed next to her. “You should get some rest too.”

“I don’t need it,” Shaw says automatically. Clambering into a tiny little bed with Root with no ulterior motives is one thing while Root’s asleep and unaware, but there’s no way Shaw’s going to give up the little personal space she has now while Root is awake and, now, unfortunately, able to talk.

“I think you do.”

Shaw _is_ tired, and she can’t be bothered to try to figure out what’s going through Root’s mind right now. She can’t tell if this is all a lazy come-on, and she also can’t tell if there actually isn’t even the slightest whiff of impropriety in Root’s bland invitation to join her in bed.

“Don’t worry,” Root says, with an irritatingly knowing look on her face. “I promise I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

Shaw rolls her eyes, opting not to reply. She hadn’t been _worried_.

To prove it, she gets up and makes a point of matter-of-factly flattening herself out next to Root on the bed. She folds her hands over her stomach and stares up at the ceiling, trying not to be so aware of the body heat Root’s radiating towards her.

“Really, Shaw,” Root says, primly (and painfully slowly) crossing her legs. “It’s not the first time I’ve shared a bed and managed to keep things PG-rated.”

Shaw snorts and turns on her side, facing away from Root.

“Goodnight, Sameen,” Root says fondly, patting the top of Shaw’s head.

A low growl escapes her, but she chooses to just pretend to go to sleep.

Root falls silent as well, and soon her breathing evens out. Shaw rolls her eyes again. It is so unfair how easily Root is able to fall asleep just because she’d gotten knocked around a little bit.

Sleep continues to elude Shaw for minutes that seem to stretch into hours. Her body is coiled and tense, as if her brain hadn’t bothered to let it know that it would still be the better part of a day before Finch and Reese manage to wrap up the ends that had begun to come loose before Shaw had gone in after Root.

“Root?” Shaw asks, eventually, maybe fifteen minutes later. She’s bored. “Are you still asleep? How much sleep do you need?”

Root gives a quiet sigh, then rolls toward Shaw.

“Able to share a bed, my ass,” Shaw mutters, as she inches closer towards the edge of the bed so that no part of her body ends up aligned with any part of Root’s. “You probably never learned how to share.”

“Mm, true. Don’t like to share,” Root says sleepily, causing Shaw to twitch just the slightest, then sigh in annoyance. That’s what she gets for talking to herself and not leaving well enough alone when Root is asleep and ergo unable to sustain any sort of an irritating conversation.

“I noticed,” Shaw says dryly.

Root hums in response, wisps of air tickling the back of Shaw’s neck.

“Guns… coffee… people,” Root says. She still sounds as sleepy as ever, and maybe Shaw’s imagining it, but there’s suddenly another layer audible in Root’s tone. “Beds,” she adds after a moment.

Or maybe Shaw’s imagining it.

“Yeah, well, neither do I,” Shaw says. Childishly, she curls up and pushes her butt out, crowding Root’s space. She’s trying really hard not to let her overactive mind run away with any useless thoughts right now, but a small grumpy part inside her knows that later, revisiting this exchange is going to keep her awake that much longer into the night.

A hand lands softly on Shaw’s rear, patting absently. “Wouldn’t ask you to, but here we are,” Root says, and she definitely sounds more awake now.

Shaw debates briefly with herself over whether or not she’s going to turn over and reply, but before she can responsibly come to a properly thought-out, well-informed decision, she’s dismayed to realize that she already has turned over and her nose is now scant inches from Root’s. “Are we still talking about this tiny ass bed?” she blurts quietly, before she can think better of it.

Root’s hand is now resting lightly on her hip, and her eyes are definitely open wide as she searches Shaw’s face. “Are you?”

Shaw frowns. “I asked first.”

Root gives a careful half-shrug.

Biting her lip (and noticing Root’s pupils darken ever so slightly as her eyes dart down to her mouth), Shaw exhales. Fine. So she’s going to have to be the mature one here.

“I don’t like sharing,” she repeats. She thinks about the deafening silence punctuating each visit from whichever Samaritan operative had been assigned to break her, isolate her, chain her willpower to the floor the last time she’d willingly thrown herself into the lions’ den. She thinks about all the spaces and gaps between the moments she’s spent with Root in the aftermath, the question marks and ellipses that fill the time when Root has a complete other life that has no room for Shaw and no need for it either. “Most of the time.”

Root doesn’t say anything, but searches Shaw’s eyes as if she’s looking for and finding every thought running through Shaw’s mind right now. Dragging her bottom lip between her teeth, Shaw can almost hear the frantic ordering of thoughts and careful selection of words running through Root’s.

“I—”

A faint explosion noise, muted by the solid concrete they’re encased in, but audible nonetheless, cuts Root off.

They both hold their breath, ears straining to try to hear more.

“That’s John’s M79 grenade launcher,” Shaw breathes, recognizing the noises that follow. She can tell Root didn’t hear it from her slightly raised eyebrows, but Shaw doesn’t have time to hold that over her head. With a quick, smug smirk, she rolls off the bed and crouches on the ground, ready to rush the door when it bursts open.

“The cavalry sure took its time,” Root says mildly, as she labours to pull herself upright and standing.

Shaw shakes her head and focuses on her gameplan for getting them both out of here alive. Not that she’s ever going to directly bring it up, but once they’re out of here and have wrapped up all the loose Samaritan ends, she’ll find a way to make sure Reese knows he’s got shitty timing and could have waited _one more minute_ to detonate.

She sees Root slouching casually against the side wall, arranging her features into a coy, amused look, getting her face ready for when the boys burst in.

Shaw rolls her eyes and turns back to the door and waits.


	8. Joss Carter

Root sits quietly at the gate, playing idly with the grass. She looks over her shoulder one more time at Shaw, several hundred feet away, still standing there, still silently contemplating the stretch of grass yawning out before her.

Root taps at her implant, as she turns around again, hoping for something to come through. Maybe for an urgent mission, or something She needs her help with. Something that requires her immediate attention, to pull her away from here, to be addressed right now.

No such luck.

Exhaling, she looks up at the clouds above. They’re distinctly formed today. It’s a nice day. Bright, clear, blue skies, distinct white clouds.

“Bored?”

Root looks up. Shaw’s standing in front of her, legs spread, hands shoved in the pockets of her leather jacket. Her face is unreadable behind sunglasses.

Root shrugs as she stands up, wiping the grass off her pants. “That was quick,” she says, even though it hadn’t felt it in the slightest. “Ready to go?”

The corners of Shaw’s mouth crook into a smile.

Root pauses, halfway turned to where they’d parked the car. Sensing they’re not about to leave yet, Root studies the way the sunlight glints off strands escaping Shaw’s carelessly pulled together ponytail.

“Come with me for a second.”

Shaw sets off back towards the gravestone.

Root looks down at her boots. They’re wonderfully sensible and wholly practical and perfectly fine for… traipsing across… graves. Unfortunately.

She follows Shaw across the cemetery and hovers a bit behind her.

She’d never met Joss Carter, had only heard of her from the others. Root can’t shake the thought that instead of being _here_ , she could be… anywhere else.

She can feel Shaw’s gaze on her, out of the corner of her vision, so she stares hard at the tombstone instead, tracing the lines of the inscription.

Root looks over at Shaw after a few more minutes of silence. She doesn’t know exactly what she’s looking for, in the little lines of Shaw’s muscles and nerves, but there’s something weighty about the energy around Shaw. It’s different, and it’s strange.

Shaw pushes her sunglasses up and studies her face, in return. Her eyes are unreadable, but they stare into Root’s, as if searching for something.

“You’re not very comfortable with this.”

“I didn’t know her,” Root says, after a moment.

Shaw nods once, as if she’s found what she was looking for, but Root has no idea what it is.

“You know what I told John once?”

Root shrugs one shoulder, and waits.

“That she had a guard of steel.” Shaw indicates with a point of her toe, but Root would have known who she was talking about regardless. The words settle and sink into the silence stretching out as Shaw continues to contemplate the gravestone.

Root nods once, too, slowly. “Okay,” she wants to say, but she doesn’t want to appear flippant, because she doesn’t know where Shaw is going with this.

As it becomes clearer that Shaw isn’t about to elaborate further on her words, Root continues to think on what she’d said. She thinks on why Shaw would feel the need to tell her. It’s clear to her that Shaw greatly admired Detective Carter and held her in high esteem, and Root thinks back on anything the Machine had ever shared with her about Joss Carter in the past.

Shaw squats, takes something out from her pocket, and leaves it leaning against the side of the gravestone.

“You liked her,” Root says, after a while, watching Shaw crouch next to the gravestone.

Shaw looks up at her, squinting as the sunshine catches her in the eye. She stares up at Root for a while before she replies. “She was a good person.”

“Unlike the rest of us?” Root offers a crooked grin.

A faint snort escapes Shaw, and she shields her eyes from the sun as she continues peering up at Root without replying. After a moment, she settles her sunglasses back on her face, almost as though she’s dismissing Root.

Root catches herself shuffling her feet, and sighs in exasperation at her own discomfort with all of this reducing her to a timid child caught being cheeky by the schoolteacher. Root bends next to Shaw, carefully, and takes a look at what Shaw had placed next to the gravestone. “What’s that?”

It’s a single bullet. Root’s face glides close to Shaw’s as she kneels and carefully plucks out a small thistle growing next to where Shaw had placed the bullet. Careful not to touch the spikes, Root wiggles it so Shaw doesn’t miss it.

“This would have knocked that over if it kept growing,” Root says, at Shaw’s questioning look.

“That little thistle? No it wouldn’t.” Shaw settles her sunglasses back on the top of her head and stares, as if she doesn’t know what to make of Root right now.

Root shrugs and offers it to Shaw with a faint smile. “Flower for you, then?”

Shaw goes from staring at her to staring at the thistle. Her eyebrows furrow slightly and a small wrinkle of distaste crosses her face.

Root smiles. The thistle may not have stabbed her in the finger, but it was certainly needling Shaw in a way Root is comfortable and familiar with. “Look, it’s perfect for you. A prickly flower for a prickly fl—”

“That’s not a flower,” Shaw says curtly, but there’s a faint hint of resigned amusement creeping into the way she purses her lips at Root.

“Isn’t it?”

“It’s a weed.”

“Mmm, I don’t think so,” Root says thoughtfully. “Weeds only grow on the graves of evildoers, so this can’t be a weed. Flowers grow on the graves of good people, so this must be a flower.”

“Of course _you_ would consider that thing to be a flower.” Shaw rolls her eyes at Root’s superstitious logic, then pushes her hands off her knees to stand.

“Are you saying I’m pricklier than you are?” Root asks lightly. She lays the thistle onto the ground in front of Carter’s gravestone with an awkward smile, feeling almost as though she was being watched by someone other than Shaw.

Shaw just shakes her head, looking down at the single thistle lying there next to the single bullet. It’s a much starker arrangement than Root would have expected for Joss Carter’s grave, having expected it to be the type of grave well-adorned with flowers left by loved ones, and she peers over at Shaw. Curious as to how often Reese or Fusco or Carter’s family comes to visit, she decides to hold off on asking the Machine till she’s out of Shaw’s earshot.

They walk back to the parking lot in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. Root continues to contemplate Carter, and thinks on what the Machine has told her about the life of the detective so wistfully remembered by the rest, and she wonders what it’s like to live a life considered so thoroughly good by human and machine alike.

“She wasn’t like the rest of us,” Shaw says, when they reach the car.

Confused, Root pauses in unlocking the car. “Oh. Earlier, when I asked about her being a good person?”

Shaw nods, fingers drumming on the hood of the car as they stand across from each other.

Root pauses for a second, then unlocks the doors. “Well, maybe we have more in common with her than you think.”

The skeptical look on Shaw’s face brings an unexpectedly wide smile to Root’s face as they open the doors and get in. Root busies herself with her seatbelt before turning to meet Shaw’s expectant gaze.

“No, we’re not _good_. But you and I…” Faltering, and sorting through the thoughts flying through her mind, she picks the one truth most readily apparent to her. She wonders if she should say what she’s about to say. “Earlier, you said she had a guard of steel.”

Shaw’s gaze bores into her, and Root looks down for a second, before peering back up at Shaw and saying, “We’ve never let our guards down, either.”

Shaw falls still. The silence stretches between them as Root backs out and begins navigating her way out of the parking lot, and tension builds in her chest as implications multiply with each passing second. Keenly yearning for the silence to be broken, and knowing Shaw won’t be the one to distract, Root casts around for anything she can say to fill the space as they pull out of the cemetery.

“Don’t forget your seatbelt, Shaw.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Wait,” Shaw says. “I never told you where we were going.”

Root raises her eyebrows without looking away from the road. “You _just_ told me you needed groceries. Two minutes ago.”

Playfully, Root takes one hand off the steering wheel and presses the back to Shaw’s forehead, as if checking for fever. Shaw rolls her eyes, but then Root’s hand drops to chuck her under the chin.

“On our way here,” Shaw clarifies impatiently, swatting Root’s hand away. “I never told you I was going to visit Carter.”

Root shrugs. “When I picked you up, you said you were on your way to see an old friend.”

“I say that all the time, though.”

“Yes. But this time it wasn’t accompanied by a loaded gun in your fist or a devious glint in your eye.”

Shaw doesn’t say anything, but she can feel the slightest smirk tugging at her lips, because, well, that was true, at least.

“And,” Root adds, “As Harold once put it, you don’t exactly have a terribly wide social circle.”

Root brings the car to a gentle stop at a traffic light and turns to face her. Root’s smiling at her with what Shaw’s starting to identify as a mix between teasing and affection—emphasis on the affection, light on the teasing. It’s topped off with a gentle tucking of a stray lock of hair behind Shaw’s ear, and Shaw’s eyes slide up, and away, and she sighs.

After a moment, after Root’s hit the gas again and when her attention is mostly on the chaotic city street in front of them, Shaw tugs at her seatbelt irritably. She doesn’t even know why she put the stupid thing on in the first place. “See, when Finch said that, it didn’t make me want to throttle his snarky little neck with my bare hands.”

Root tosses a quick smile in her direction, and Shaw can essentially mouth the words about to come out of Root along with her: “Feel free to throttle me any time, sweetie.”

Shaw sighs, but there’s a faint feeling of familiarity creeping through her. How is it that she’s come to feel _okay_ with this, now? With Root? And how is it that only now, after months of what feels as though Root’s been withholding – withholding what, she doesn’t know, but _something_ – Shaw’s starting to realize that she’s okay with feeling okay?

But _this_ , them, everything between them, hasn’t felt _okay_ in the way she’s gotten used to in a long time, and the words are out of Shaw’s mouth before she can think twice.

“Do you mean that?”

“That _I’m_ not the one who’s used our safe word several times, you mean?” Root grins. That familiar, coy, automatic playfulness in Root’s voice chafes at Shaw’s ears with its frivolity.

Stubbornly staring at Root, refusing to look away till she meets her gaze, Shaw waits for Root to come to another stop before she speaks again.

“When you call me sweetie, I mean,” Shaw says, slowly and deliberately. There’s an edge in her voice, but it’s a sharper edge than normal, and from the flicker in Root’s eyes, she thinks Root can hear it too.

Instead, Root blinks and turns back to the road, watching the pedestrians cross in front of them. Her fingers dance just the slightest on the grips of the steering wheel, and she laughs, light, airy, after a pause. “Well, if you mean whether or not you’re _sweet_ , from head to toe, I can—”

Shaw shakes her head, interrupting, “No. That’s not what I mean.”

A prickle of impatience runs up Shaw’s spine as she waits for the real Root to emerge.

“It’s just a word,” Root says softly. She doesn’t look away from the road, so she misses the way Shaw’s gaze drops, the way Shaw turns to face front again, and the deliberate, reluctant unclenching of Shaw’s jaw.

She can see Root glancing at her out of the corner of her eye. She wonders if Root is going to add to that, to take it back, to manage to talk about _them_ in a way that isn’t superficial. When nothing more comes, except a quiet, “Sameen?” Shaw blows out a breath, silently, and doesn’t say anything in response.

She can do dismissive, too.

 

 

* * *

  


 

It’s chilly, and Root isn’t just thinking of the refrigerated air wafting around in the frozen foods section as she studies the tension in Shaw’s shoulders.

She’s been trailing after Shaw since they entered the grocery store, as Shaw inspects various food items and piles an alarmingly large amount into her second grocery basket. (The first is currently weighing Root’s arm down, and Shaw had glared so ferociously at Root heading towards the shopping carts when they first entered that Root knew Shaw still vividly remembered the last time Root had caused a scene by riding the cart up and down the aisles.)

As time passes, though, Root has noticed that Shaw’s mood seems remarkably improved with each passing food item she adds to her basket(s). Root’s sure that by the end of this shopping trip, as long as nothing goes awry, Root will be able to intentionally irritate Shaw again without (much) fear of an imminent and violent death.

Root follows Shaw down the condiments aisle and wonders how much hot sauce she’d need to throw at an opponent to amass a volume with enough surface area to effectively incapacitate their vision. Picking up one bottle boasting near-lethal levels of capsaicin on the tongue, never mind its effect on, say, human eyes, Root is just glad the extent of Shaw’s love for hot sauce doesn’t ordinarily stretch much farther than Tabasco.

“Grocery stores sure are a breeding ground for lethal weapons,” Root comments under her breath, and sure enough, the Machine replies with a few suggestions that Root, as creative and ingenious as she’d like to think she is, would never have even dreamt of.

“Did you say something?”

“No,” Root blurts, turning to face Shaw all the way at the end of the aisle. For the millionth time, Root wonders how it’s possible that Shaw can have such attuned hearing even without the aid of an artificial superintelligence in her ear.

“Are you sure? I thought I heard something about weapons,” Shaw says suspiciously.

Root casually leans against the support pillar in the middle of the aisle.

The last thing she needs right now is for Shaw to discover that the Machine was feeding her ideas on how to kill people using only materials found in the canned foods section. The timing would just be too suspicious for Root to be able to explain the context and how it all started with a comment made out of _defense_ -minded curiosity.

“Second,” Root eventually says. That was the closest rhyme she could come up with, because the Machine had fallen completely silent, almost as though She was apprehensive too. “I was wondering if I should get you a second. One. Of this.”

She holds up a bottle of Tabasco sauce.

Shaw studies her with narrowed eyes. “I don’t need it.”

“Let’s just call it a gift from me,” Root says breezily, dropping it into the basket anyway and strolling down the aisle to meet Shaw at the end. “What’s next?”

Shaw scowls up at her, and doesn’t reply, but Root manages to catch the flick of her eyes to the top shelf in front of Shaw.

Root notices now that Shaw had set her basket down some time ago, and has been standing with her arms crossed and legs spread, knees slightly spread. She looks about one lunge away from a fighting stance, and Root leans in closer to Shaw.

“What’s _up_ , Shaw?”

Shaw’s eyes flicker up again, and a muscle in her jaw twitches.

Root looks up at the shelf, grinning. “Diced tomatoes? Pasta sauce? Canned beans?”

It looks like Shaw’s chewing on her tongue for a second, a deeply resentful look on her face as she stares straight ahead and refuses to meet Root’s gaze. Opening her mouth with a click, Shaw bites out one word: “Tomatoes.”

Root shuffles a little closer, arm outstretched. She presses her chest into Shaw’s shoulder, lingering a little longer than necessary, twisting needlessly so their contact becomes more pronounced.

“These ones?” she asks, waiting for Shaw to look back up at the shelf to tell her which brand she wants.

Shaw obliges, looking up and bringing their mouths a hair’s breadth away from each other.

A smile curves its way onto Root’s lips, and just as she’s about to lean down the fraction of a millimeter left between them, something distinctly hard and metal presses into her gut.

“Any brand will do,” Shaw says slowly, head still tilted up but eyes cast down at Root’s lips. There’s a familiar hard glint in Shaw’s eyes that leaves Root with no doubt that the next two things she could very easily be hearing are the click of the safety off and the burst of a bullet right through her.

Root grins outright at the rush of everything – adoration, apprehension, affection – rushing through her.

Feeling slightly heady, Root grabs any can off the shelf and steps back, dropping them into Shaw’s basket, gaze fixed on Shaw’s mouth the entire while.

“You’re welcome,” she breathes, tilting her head and studying the tantalizing moue of annoyance that Shaw’s lips make.

Shaw spins on her heel and heads over to the next aisle. Only because she’s watching Shaw so closely, Root spots Shaw slipping her gun back into the waistband of her pants as she follows. Root grins at a wide-eyed child toddling after its mother as they pass by.

She finds Shaw standing in front of the coffee section in the next aisle, a blank look on her face as she considers the various brands of coffee in front of her.

Root looks from the shelves, stocked full of coffee grounds and beans, to Shaw, who doesn’t harbour the slightest inclination or appreciation for the complexities of coffee beyond its utilitarian purpose. Shaw, who’s tapping her index finger against her thigh deliberately and rhythmically. It’s one of the few tells Shaw has, and it’s indicating boredom, and it’s almost as though she’s waiting… for…

“Why, Sameen, are we picking up groceries for me as well?”

Shaw fixes her with a bored stare. “Are you going to pick something, or just stand there like a little kid in front of an ice cream truck with too many flavours?”

A grin splits Root’s face, and she draws up to stand next to Shaw, and considers the options before her.

Several seconds pass by, before Shaw lets out a heavy sigh.

A few more seconds, and Root thinks she can hear the faint sound of a nail tapping against a knife in a thigh holster.

Root pretends to examine the shelves in front of her for a few more seconds, then without looking, plucks out the package farthest from her so her arm just narrowly avoids brushing against Shaw’s chest.

“That’s not your usual—” Shaw cuts herself off at the startled, but pleased, smile on Root’s face at what she was about to say. Shaw shakes her head once at the deeply ecstatic, thoroughly appreciative look Root’s sliding up and down her body, and sets off for the next aisle.

The air between them has considerably warmed, not least due to the considerable amount of friction Root is thankful still appears to exist between the two of them. Trailing a lot closer behind Shaw than she had before, they’re walking through the snack foods aisle now on their way to the cash register.

Root notes a slight slow in Shaw’s step, and looks to the right where Shaw’s eyes are fixed, curious. Shaw reaches out, falters for the briefest microsecond, then grabs a bag of pretzels decisively and with an almost defiant glare in Root’s direction.

Root doesn’t say anything, just lifts an eyebrow and continues towards the cashier. She starts placing the items in the basket she’s got onto the belt, gaze flicking over occasionally to the bag of pretzels Shaw deliberately drops onto the belt when she joins her.

Root wonders if Shaw remembers that day in the park, months ago, and she wonders if Shaw remembers the single pretzel that had ended off that day on such a bizarre note. She starts loading the scanned groceries into bags distractedly, studying Shaw, who finishes unloading their last basket, looks up from the belt, and meets her gaze head-on.

“Do you want more?”

Root raises her eyebrows. “Of what?”

“Pretzels.”

Root lifts one shoulder in a shrug. She doesn’t even like pretzels, but there’s something deliberate in the stare Shaw is fixing at her, something far too passive in the way Shaw’s features are schooled.

Somehow, Root has an inkling that they might not be talking about _pretzels_ , again, and memories rise up, of clumsy words and that moment outside Shaw’s apartment with Bear at their heels and unspoken _feelings_ fit to burst between them.

“Whatever you… want,” she says carefully.

Shaw’s eyes narrow. Root finds herself holding her breath, as if she might blow out a breath and cause whatever this is, built up relentlessly all day, to collapse all around them, now, in the middle of a grocery store with a line of impatient New Yorkers behind them.

“I’m going to go get more,” Shaw says.

Root hesitates.

She opens her mouth, not entirely sure what’s about to come out but knowing with an absolute sense of surety that _this_ is what’s been the cause of Shaw’s impatience all day. _This_ has been the cause of all the tension simmering over the past few months, in the form of chilliness and frozen words between them replacing all the heat and friction they’d begun with, and—

“That’ll be $43.11,” the cashier says. “Cash, credit, or debit?” He looks between the two of them expectantly, waiting for someone to hold out their payment.

“Wait,” Root says. The cashier shrugs. She looks back at Shaw, but there’s a hardness now encasing the fuzziness of that split second of vulnerability that she thought Shaw might have been showing.

Shaw waits.

For a second, before turning and disappearing up the snack aisle.

When Shaw gets back, another bag of pretzels in hand and a familiarly unapproachable scowl on her face, Root holds out her (fake) credit card to the cashier without a word.

 

 

* * *

  


 

Shaw’s aware that what she might be doing at the present moment might, by some, be classified as sulking.

Shaw reminds herself that it also holds true that she’s entirely capable of committing acts which might, by some, be classified as felonies, too.

“Pull over,” she finally says, as they approach an abandoned gas station on the interstate.

“Here?” Root asks. “Why?”

Shaw doesn’t answer, but Root pulls over and puts the car in park anyway. They sit in silence for some time, before Root turns to her. “Are you hungry? Did you want to grab something out of the trunk?”

Shaw stays silent still, but when she leans over Root to hit the door lock button and Root literally scoots back in her chair at the sudden movement, she scoffs.

Root looks from the locked door, to the abandoned gas station around them, to the look on Shaw’s face. It’s about as worried as Shaw’s ever seen her, but even that doesn’t distract from the one thought that’s been rolling around her brain for ages now: “You said the pretzel would be there.”

“The pretzel,” Root says. She’s still being difficult and stubborn and Shaw recognizes that look on her face. It’s the look that appears every time Root’s about to shut her out, about to gloss over what they are to each other and the implications of any or all of it. “The pretzels we just bought, or…?”

Shaw grits her teeth. Root isn’t stupid. She’s just waiting for Shaw to spell it all out for her, the brat. “Look. The pretzels don’t have to be here if they don’t want to be, okay? The pretzels can leave any time they want, and they _do_ , but then they keep coming back. But if I shouldn’t think that there are pretzels there, for me, to eat, when there aren’t actually pretzels left for me to eat, then I should just know now that I should be eating other food. Okay?”

Root blinks at the speed with which Shaw blurts everything out. Looking almost like a deer caught in headlights, Root’s still got that _look_ on her face and Shaw’s very close to needing to hurt something.

“There’s plenty of other food back there, too,” Root says, and the _look_ is starting to fade and now there’s a softness that almost agitates Shaw just as much as the expression it’s replacing.

“I _know_ there’s other food,” Shaw snaps. “I w—”

She chokes back the word that had almost come out, and fumbles for the door unlock instead.

The look on Root’s face softens even further, and she places her hand lightly on Shaw’s leg, and she waits for Shaw to finish her sentence.

Shaw licks her lips. She knows her face is pulled into probably the most ferocious scowl she’s worn in a very long time, and Root’s just staring across at her with that stupid, dopey look in her eyes and a gentle, patient smile on her face, and Shaw very nearly _growls_.

“I want—I want the damn pretzels, okay?”

“You… want the pretzels,” Root repeats quietly. She says the word _want_ with soft, careful reverence, and Shaw swallows a sharp lump in her throat at the way Root is looking at her again.

“But—” Shaw bursts out, then she takes a second. She takes a moment to modulate the volume of her voice, to _get a hold of herself_ , to _go back to being herself_. “But if we’re… if we’re all out of pretzels, or if the pretzels would rather be somewhere else, then I should just go look for something else to eat, too, because there’s _so much_ other food out there that I could—that I should be eating, instead of—”

Root – with a vaguely dazed look on her face, as if she’s still processing whether or not everything that’s happened has been real, as if she’s vaguely dissociated from everything that has just happened in the past few minutes – places both her hands at the base of Shaw’s neck, thumbs meeting in the center of her jugular notch, and Shaw automatically shuts up and sits a little straighter.

And then Root’s kissing her, swooping forward, head tilted, mouth unyielding, and Shaw can feel Root’s furrowed eyebrows as they brush up against her own. Shaw’s hands automatically reach out to grab Root’s sides the way they’ve done countless times in the past, one of Root’s thumbs pressing into the softness guarding her trachea at the base of her neck while Shaw’s hands grapple at the back of her head to bring their lips closer together.

“I want the pretzels, too,” Root murmurs as her other hand fumbles around the side of Shaw’s chair.

They fall back with a sudden _whap_ and Shaw needs a split second to process the past few seconds but everything keeps happening and then Root’s hands are back again around her throat, thumbs spreading upwards to the underside of her jaw, carrying the pressure of weight along with their frantic lips as Root straddles her on the chair.

Grasping at Root’s hips, Shaw begins undulating her own hips and guides Root’s rolling motion from beneath. Root hisses against Shaw’s lips, tucking Shaw’s bottom lip between her teeth as Shaw’s fingers dig in fiercely with each slow inch Root’s hand begins creeping down Shaw’s chest, pressing down all the while.

Their gasps are short and loud and unfiltered, their mouths meeting and pulling away rapidly, messily, hands fumbling in their quickness to shed their clothes. They don’t separate, don’t lose contact for less than half a millisecond at a time, insistent on pressing close together and ripping clothing away to make up for it.

Shaw pulls Root down so urgently the sudden contact between the pulsating heat of Root’s core and the tensed muscle of her thigh cause both to shiver. Root groans into her mouth, the sound hot and sudden, and Shaw juts forward, pulling her hair back, teeth grazing against Root’s earlobe.

“I want you,” Shaw murmurs as she bites down, the sound reverberating in the conch of Root’s ear and spurring a loud breath dragged in and a clenched shudder around Shaw’s thigh.

It’s so simple, so unbelievably simple, that it could have always been like this, with Root grinding herself along the length of Shaw’s thigh as she slips her hand between them both with a soft, “I want you too.”

“I want this,” Root says, and Shaw leverages one leg against the dashboard to push up, to spread open, to grant access to Root’s firm, insistent fingers.

“And this,” Root says, and Shaw finds her other leg flung towards the back so Root can smirk, and bend, and hungrily sink her face between Shaw’s thighs with her back pushed up against the window.

“This,” Root murmurs quickly against Shaw, almost incoherent but far easier to distinguish than the bursts of cuss words and exclamations escaping Shaw as she tugs Root’s hair up and away and over her back. The curve of Root’s spine is followed by the curve of her ass, and through half-closed eyes Shaw watches Root’s entire body tremble and shake in sync with her own as her fingers plunge into her over and over.

“I want _this_ ,” Shaw bites out, before pulling Root up and launching forward and pressing Root between the chairs, spread above the gear stick. She bends from the side, mouth seeking Root and finding her every bit as warm and wet and ready as Root had found Shaw. Shaw’s knee presses next to Root’s head as she holds herself up and closes her lips tightly around Root’s clit.

Root abandons the game they’d been playing and wordlessly reaches for Shaw with both hands, one wrapping around from the back and the other underneath. Shaw can’t distinguish between intentional movements designed to drive Root as wild as she feels from the involuntary spasms in reaction to Root’s fingers, but that doesn’t matter as her tongue and lips continue their frenzy against Root’s cunt.

“Ah,” Root cries out, arching her torso towards the backseat. Shaw’s hand reaches up, reaches for the small, soft rounding of Root’s breast and the hardened, sensitive nipple she’s all too familiar with by now. “ _Fuck_.”

Root sits back up, reaching for Shaw, kissing her once, hard and sweet and slow, before drawing just far away enough for their noses to touch and for their eyes to meet. Shaw stares back into Root’s eyes, out of breath, chest heaving with unresolved lust but calm and settled within, as if this is how everything should always have been.

“I want you,” Root says again, then smiles with a devious glint in her eye, “to get in the back.”

Finding herself sprawled in the back, legs spread, Shaw’s hands come up to her own breasts as they take a minute to consider each other, sweaty and breathless and still wanting more. They stare at each other inside the fully fogged up car, finally feeling as though they aren’t trying to break through an invisible wall between each other, before Root clambers over and settles one leg over Shaw’s, hoisting Shaw’s other leg up to slide her own underneath.

Shaw settles her grip over Root’s sides again, watching Root push herself up and against her with one hand on her thigh. Her sharp intake of breath as she wraps her arms around the small of Root’s back, dragging them as close together as possible, is mirrored by Root.

Head tilted up at Root, her face, her hair, her other arm looped around Shaw’s neck, at the way Root is surrounding all of her, Shaw squares her shoulders and puts every ounce of muscle in her biceps towards pushing and pulling Root’s hips in tandem with her own frantic movements.

Legs propped against the chairs and pushing harder upwards each time to support both their combined weight, joined in the center, Shaw feels an irrepressible tug from within at the view of Root above her, eyes half-closed, arms outstretched, holding onto the backseat and riding her with the exact same intensity. Each time they strike against each other, slick and soft and so perfectly at the right spot, Shaw feels as though her heart races to catch up with the rhythm of their bodies against one another.

“Oh,” a part of her brain whispers, soft and slow and nearly as sweet as the way Root says her name when she comes.

“Pretzels,” her mouth says instead.

Root laughs, the sound of it ringing exhausted and sated. “Does it have to be pretzels? I don’t even like pretzels.”

Shaw turns her head to look at Root.

“Actual pretzels, not… _your_ ‘pretzels’,” Root clarifies, with air quotes around the metaphorical ‘pretzels’. “See? One day I’m going to tell you that I’ll always have ‘pretzels’ for you, no matter what, and then you’re just going to get angry at me when you visit me the next day and I don’t have any snack foods at all in my cupboards.”

“Well, I guess you’re just going to have to learn to love it,” Shaw says.

Root smiles at her. “I guess so.”

Despite herself, Shaw positively grins back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY S5 PREMIERE DAY!!

**Author's Note:**

> so... when i originally planned this fic out... martine was still alive in the show... so now i guess this is an AU where shaw doesn't get mind control implants in her brain and martine doesn't get her neck snapped by a vengeful broken-hearted root
> 
> i don't know if this all says more about how long i've taken to finish this fic, or if it says more about how long it's taken cbs to get their fuckin shit together re: poi season 5 air date (either way, it's been 84 years)


End file.
